Review of Truck Turner (1974) by Max M — 27 Dec 2009

Following an Academy Award win two years earlier for scoring the film Shaft, the Black Moses of Soul, Isaac Hayes makes his motion picture acting debut in this tough, violent and very funny Blaxploitation film about an ex-football player-turned bounty hunter Mac 'Truck' Turner (Hayes) who finds himself the target of a group of murderous pimps who are out to avenge a fellow pimp who was killed at the hands of Turner.

Hayes proves right off the bat that he is just as at ease in front of the camera as he is in front of a microphone. The back and forth between him and his partner, played by Alan Weeks (who sharp-eyed viewers might recognize as the punk that pulls a knife on Gene Hackman in The French Connection), is very naturalistic and hilarious.

Another great performance is given by actress Nichelle Nichols who is most widely known for her role of Lt. Cmdr. Uhura in Star Trek. Here, playing the exact opposite of that character, she plays a vengeful madam who puts the contract out on Turner's life, and Nichols seems to be relishing every minute of playing a real tough-as-nails baddie delivering lines like, "Those two bitches that left - they had better learn to sell pussy in Iceland because if I ever see them again I'm gonna cut their fuckin' throats!".

And director Johnathan Kaplan, who got his start with Roger Corman (he even gives a shout-out to a close friend and fellow Corman alum, director Joe Dante by naming one of the hit men after him), keeps the action fast, furious and very violent, just the way a no-holds-barred low-budget action picture should be (the final shoot-out in a hospital is just as outrageous as the one director John Woo would stage fifteen years later in his action masterpiece Hard Boiled).

Kaplan would go on to direct the brilliant, gritty youth picture Over The Edge as well as the film The Accused, which won Jodie Foster her first Oscar.