Used Cars
In an age where current comedy films have their writing rely on being witty rather than funny and any hint of political incorrectness is shot down in favor of awful irony, Robert Zemeckis’ 1980 classic would seem like a breath of fresh air to young audiences today. Telling the story of two rival used car lots run by feuding brothers (both played by Jack Warden) and the assortment of dirty tricks pulled on each other in order to up their business, the film itself is tasteless, crude, pulls no punches and is easily up there among the funniest American films ever made. As the “nasty” brother, Warden lets loose with one of the meanest bastards ever in Roy L. Fuchs, who laments how it used to be that “when you bought a politician, that son of a bitch stayed bought!” As the young huckster salesman who takes up the fight against Roy L., Kurt Russell displays remarkable comic timing, able to say anything possible to get on a customer’s good side and coming up with elaborate schemes to get them onto the lot, as when he hires two subversive techies (Michael McKean and David L. Lander) to put on a “pirate” used car commercial first by cutting into the broadcast of a football game and later, unforgettably, a speech by then-President Jimmy Carter (“Look out Marshall Lucky, it’s High Prices!”). As such, the commercial scenes are among the absolute most hilarious in movie history, showing the main characters to truly be anything-goes anarchists who will stoop to any level to get the job done. Helping Russell out are Gerrit Graham as the ultra-superstitious, womanizing fellow salesman, and Frank McRae, who steals the movie at MANY points as the crazed Jim The Mechanic (“Maroon car my ass! This motherfucker’s red!”). The plot, which sees the daughter of Russell’s boss take over the lot as they fall in love and ultimately he must sacrifice his budding political career (where he was looking forward to taking large amounts of revenue on graft and corruption) in order to keep her from going out of business, serves as a mere clothesline for the never-ending assault of profanity, memorable lines, and daringly dark humor that the movie resorts to at times, possessing the ability to make us laugh at incidents that would be horrific and traumatic in real life. We also get a slew of smaller roles from some b-level comedy stars here, including Joe Flaherty, Alfonso Arau, and Al “Grandpa Munster” Lewis. More importantly, it harkens back to a different era of film comedy in which there seemed to be no restraints or handcuffs on the writers involved, where no matter how vulgar a joke or a moment seemed, it was all good to go AS LONG AS IT WAS FUNNY (with the added irony of having the one and only Steven Spielberg on board as an Executive Producer). Overall, it can be seen today as a look back into the past as to what great comedy was about, and what it can be again when the likes of Seth Rogen and others have seen their time come and gone…
10/10