The Cannonball Run (1981)

What's this?  A Tuesday post?  Have things gone mad around here?!  Kind of.  Thanks to Hurricane Sandy, the federal government is shut down for the day and yours truly gets a day off work to appreciate the fragility of life in the face of Nature's might.  Or just a soggy wet day, depending on whether or not you're at my place or New Jersey.

Since there's no reason for everyone to be miserable, I present to you The Cannonball Run.

  There are some great racing movies out there that make you feel every turn in the road, that make your pulse pound with excitement.  Then there are race films with Dom DeLuise and half the Rat Pack.  This is the latter category.

I remember seeing this and the sequel (coming up soon) all the time on TV when I was a kid.  I'm pretty sure they've fallen out of vogue now and you'll probably have to search diligently to uncover them again but it's worth the effort.  It's surprising how well they still hold up.  Mostly because there's not a lot to them.

The Cannonball Run is a coast-to-coast race with no real prize other than bragging rights.  But that's enough for all the participants, including J.J. McClure (Burt Reynolds) and his partner Victor (Dom DeLuise).  Part of the race involves not getting ticketed for driving at insane speeds across the U.S. which means that everybody tries to come up with ways to stay or at least talk their way out of trouble.  J.J. and Victor come up with the idea of using an ambulance.  Victor finds a "doctor" (Jack Elam) of questionable skills and J.J. secures a "patient" (Farrah Fawcett) who is really into trees. 

The movie abounds with cameos and stars from Roger Moore playing a deluded man named Seymour who thinks he is Roger Moore playing James Bond, to Bianca Jagger playing the sister of a speed-freak sheik (Jamie Farr).  It's wild, wacky fun with non-stop jokes.

My only issue with it is that we were watching a downloaded version from Rob's server that had Dutch subtitles through the whole thing that we couldn't turn off.  It was only irritating because it covered the actual English subtitles used during the scenes with Jackie Chan (oh, hell yes, Jackie Chan is in this) and Michael Hui.  But you shouldn't have that problem with any hard copies you find.