Hal Needham and Burt Reynolds made seven films together. I loved Smokey & The Bandit, I think Hooper is really well done, Cannonball Run is just goofy fun. And Stroker Ace? There was potential for sure, but even in 1983 some of the humor was rough, and in today’s world a lot of the jokes are really uncomfortable as there is a lot around consent and sexual assault. Not good.
To his credit Burt Reynolds is charming and smug, and is pretty damned likable throughout. I also think there’s a solid film here somewhere, but the sexual ‘humor’ is a misfire.
Reynolds finds himself paired with Jim Nabors and falling for Loni Anderson.
Reynolds plays the titular Stroker Ace, he’s a NASCAR racing who has really ruined his latest sponsorship and has to make a deal with Clyde Torkle (Ned Beatty), who has a chain of fast food chicken restaurants.
Lugs (Nabors) is Stroker’s mechanic, keeping his car running and constantly interrupting Stroker at the most inopportune times as Stroker tries to romance/seduce Pembrook (Anderson).
The racing stuff is fun, and Stroker has an on the track nemesis in the form of Aubrey James (Parker Stevenson). In fact, if the film had stuck with that, and focused more on the racing and the sponsorship (and trying to get out of it) and maybe removed a lot of the Pembrook stuff, or made it less rapey and cringey…
Reynolds is charming as hell, he’s just so smug and confident onscreen, you can’t help but like him be smarmy.
There’s some appearances by actual NASCAR racers and announcers, and that part of the film is a lot of fun. I wanted more outwitting of Torkle, and less of Pembrook, or at least less of Pembrook the way she was written and put into the story.
There’s a fun appearance by Bubba Smith as Torkle’s driver and an odd appearance by Cassandra Petersen in her Elvira gear that comes and goes out of nowhere.
This one is a silly film that because of the Pembrook stuff doesn’t play well at all, and it definitely isn’t as good a film as it could have been. There was a lot of fun to be had in this film, and it misses the mark more times than it hits it.
Yet, for all that, I really like watching Reynolds in these kinds of roles. He’s just fun and likable in this era, and he’s funny, charming, and good-looking but the material… ugh.
