Smokey and the Bandit (1977)

	Directed by: Hal Needham	COUNTRY USA GENRE Action/Comedy NORWEGIAN TITLE Smokey and the Bandit RUNNING TIME 96 minutes
	Produced by: Mort Engelberg
	Written by: James Lee Barrett Charles Shyer Alan Mandel

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Bandit	Burt Reynolds
Sherrif Buford T. Justice	Jackie Gleason
Carrie	Sally Field
Cledus Snow	Jerry Reed
Junior Justice	Mike Henry

Review

The idea and carefreeness that – behind and in front of the camera – shaped the conception of Smokey and the Bandit is probably a forever lost one. This is something that in retrospect makes the film the most notable advocate for the all-American, freedom-embracing highway culture of the pre-environmentally conscious times of the 1950s, '60s and '70s. What Hal Needham did here, in addition to having tons of fun together with his high-flying, chronically cheerful, moustached pal, was to present us with the logical successor to the cowboy and bring the western movie into a new format. The horse was replaced with horsepower, and the smell of manure and campfires was replaced with the odour of diesel and hamburgers.

The form of Smokey and the Bandit is ridiculously recognisable, down to the last formulaic chase and the last one-dimensional portrayal of the freedom-restricting enemy (read: law enforcer), but this in no way detracts from the fun and wonderfully blithe nature of not only the film itself, but the entire culture and time period it depicts. For what Smokey and the Bandit represented for the American audience (and for the contemporary Americana-endorsing European outposts of US culture, including my own native Norway) was an escape from the urbanisation and increasingly complex social and political situation of the time. What Burt Reynolds offers us here is a return to the basal vigour of manhood, complete with the moustache and the hairy chest. And we just cannot help but want it – downright yearn for it. Perhaps even more so today, as we seem on the verge of drowning in our global ecological reckoning.

Re-reviewed: Copyright © 09.12.2007 Fredrik Gunerius Fevang
Original review: Copyright © 24.03.2000 Fredrik Gunerius Fevang