Smokey and the Bandit (1977)

The Muppet Movie, except they’re running Coors.

I had a stupid grin on my face the entire runtime. The score absolutely rips, the car stunts are genuinely breathtaking in a way that made me realize how much modern action has lost by going CGI, and Burt Reynolds is operating at a frequency of charisma that I don’t think exists anymore. Like, scientists should study him.

Buford T. Justice might be one of the funniest antagonists ever put to screen. Jackie Gleason is just out there cooking. Every time he opens his mouth I lost it.

The whole thing kind of plays like a redneck Muppet Movie, except instead of trying to get the band back together they’re running Coors across state lines. It has that same shaggy, episodic, “we’re just hanging out with these guys” energy where the plot is barely the point. The point is the hangout. The point is the Trans Am. The point is watching Sally Field laugh at Burt Reynolds laughing at Sally Field.

They don’t make em like this anymore and that’s kind of a tragedy.

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