just watch it!

Don't Believe the Hype

Crappy film

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Elroy Jackson Junior (Jeff Bridges) drives fast along the back roads of North Carolina delivering moonshine whiskey for his father (Art Lund). Their still explodes and father is sent to jail. Junior starts racing dirt tracks and demolition derby for small time operator Hackel (Ned Beatty) to raise money for his father's legal defense. He builds his own cars. His brother Wayne (Gary Busey) tries to get him a garage mechanic job and his mother is worried about safety. He meets sweet Georgia peach Marge (Valerie Perrine) working one of the races. The races get bigger and bigger.This has a great sense of the backwoods world of racing. Bridges is terrific as a man waiting to explode. It's got good car sequences. It also has the great Jim Croce song "I Got a Name". The story needs a bit more drama. Junior needs to overcome something insurmountable. It all feels rather predetermined but it's compelling nevertheless.

Jeff Bridges did a great job as Jr. Jackson(Johnson). It was after reading an old interview with Jr. Johnson and him referencing the movie that I sought it out to see. And I was not disappointed. Gary Busey also did a great job. From the moonshine runs, to the demolition derbies there was a lot of truth. To those who've never experienced the deep south and some of it's uniqueness, especially for the era, this was dead on. Here it is more than 30 years later and Nascar hasn't changed all that much. The grooming of drivers has, so movies like "The Last American Hero", help with the preservation of a simpler time and people. Yet the altruism in the seeking to gain another dollar still reigns today, some thirty years later. There aren't many movies you can say that about.

Well, I guess I'll be the first Yank to comment on this "American" story. It's a good story. The film is loaded with some of my favorite offbeat actors: Bridges (Jeff, not the striaight man Bo), Gary (YeeHaw) Busey, Ned ("now take off dem panties") Beatty and Ed (The Venerable Prick) Lauter. I'm not much of a Nascar fan, nor country music fan, but I do bridge the gap between "The Eisenhower Era" (My folks) and today's ubiquitous Commerical Amerika. Not to be a spoiler...but this IS YOUR FATHER's Richard Petty (SENIOR), this IS about real tried and true American Rednecks passion for something. It's no Garth Brooks and seeing it 30 years after it was made, reminds of a time gone by...<sigh> I digress. If you're a nascar fan of today, or a REAL Nascar fan. RENT THIS. If not, catch on Cable and it's good story, good enough acting and technical attributes.

Jeff Bridges' combination of redneck roughness and choirboy sweetness is just right for this 1973 tale of a poor Southern boy, Junior Jackson, making good on the car racing track. The movie is based on Tom Wolfe's articles about the famous stock car racer, Junior Johnson, whom Wolfe dubbed "The Last American Hero". Cinematic Junior, like the real one, learns how to drive hard and fast while running the moonshine whiskey made by his father. The movie covers the first year or so of his career, from when he takes up racing to raise money while his father is in jail, until his first big win. The movie celebrates individuality and competitiveness, but despite all his skill, guts and cheek, even Junior can't make it by himself. Real success comes only after he gives up his independent status, and agrees to drive for a car-maker (Ed Lauter). Also in support are his family, with Art Lund and Gary Busey excellent as his father and brother; and a stock car groupie (Valerie Perrine) who retains a soft spot for him, whoever else she's currently sleeping with. However, for many viewers, the main interest of the film will lie less in its plot, characterisations, or "right stuff" message, than in the atmosphere and thrills of the races which the movie graphically captures.