Review of The Cannonball Run (1981) by Kai82 — 11 Jan 2020

Pure comedy gold with one of the best casts you can get for an action comedy at this time. The movie is about an illegal cross country race in the USA and the awesome / crazy / hilarious teams that participate.

You have Burt Reynolds and Victor Prinzi which have a great chemistry together. Prinzi has an alternative personality in form of Captain Chaos which comes out at the wrong (and funniest) times. You have Roger Moore who does a parody of himself as James Bond including driving an Aston Martin with all features you expect.

You have the legends Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. who play scam artist disguised as priest . You got Jackie Chan and Michael Hui. You got the football legend Terry Bradshaw, Mel Tillis , Tara Buckham and many more.

There is also a cameo by Peter Fonda as leader of a biker gang and a great fight scene. The whole movie is a gag festival and delivers hilarious joke after joke. It was that kind of movie that was a huge financial success, liked by movie goers, hated by critics and later forgotten.

So you can say it has not the kind of intellectual humour. I need to mention that this is far away from juvenile or closet humour. Overall this movie is like a time capsule for comedies from the early 80s and worth watching.