It was cheeky of New World to pinch the title of the Burt Reynolds series – surely there was a copyright issue – but I guess Roger Corman could argue that he was before Smokey and the Bandit making smash and bash films, with Grand Theft Auto, Death Race 2000, etc.
The plot involves a young hoon abducting the sheriff’s daughter as a joke – she’s all for it, of course, but dad heads off in pursuit. It’s all very much in the teen hoon mode of New World’s Ron Howard starrers, Eat My Dust and Grand Theft Auto – like the first of those this is directed by Chuck Griffith. Griffith isn’t credited with the script but it feels like a Griffith work – lots of off the wall humour and wacky characters, in addition to the hooning around.
Unfortunately, apart from a few bright spots (eg the young girl addicted to cigarettes) it gets wearisome after a while, not helped by the uninspiring lead couple - a pair of TV stars of the late 70s, Nancy Drew and Kirsty McNicol’s brother. The support cast lacks gravitas, particularly the character of the girl’s father, and in the end it gets just too silly. Presumably this helped kill off genre.
The co-producer was Gale Ann Hurd; this was made at the tail end of the period in Roger Corman’s career when the people he worked for went on to have top rank careers. (What killed that off was the explosion of the video market, causing the majority of his films to be made for the small screen.)
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