Used Cars was released in a limited edition blu-ray on April 8th from Twilight Time
Used Cars is rude, offensive, morally reprehensible, and I totally fell in love with it.
To paraphrase Director Robert Zemeckis: “Used Cars is like a Frank Capra picture, only everyone is a liar.”
Always vaguely aware of the existence of a brash comedy called Used Cars, I had no idea that this was an early Kurt Russell star vehicle (ahem), the only R-rated Robert Zemeckis film to date (do more, Bob!) and a screenplay co-written by Zemeckis and his Back To The Future series co-writer Bob Gale. Used Cars has the feel of an iconic comedy like Vacation or Animal House, and hails from that very same era, stylistically. But while those movies have maintained a high level of cultural awareness, it seems like Used Cars has largely eroded into the sands of time as far as public consciousness goes. (Perhaps because it released the week after Airplane and never lit the box office on fire?) Which is why I thank Twilight Time in a big way for releasing their blu-ray of this film and giving me a chance to discover it in high definition, remastered visual glory.
The comedy of Used Cars is VERY broad, opening with our deviant anti-hero, car-salesman/aspiring politician Rudy Russo (Russell) turning back an odometer with a screwdriver in an elaborate opening crane shot, and even using a fishing pole with a $10 bill attached to lure a customer to his used car lot and away from the lot across the street owned by the villainous Roy L. Fuchs (Jack Warden in a dual role as both Roy and Luke, warring used car dealership owners and brothers whose rivalry takes place across the street from one another like the Hatfields and McCoys across the gorge before them). And that style of comedy can either be a wonderful weapon amidst an arsenal of tricks (see: this movie), or a major handicap preventing a film from ever moving past juvenile winking (see: Date Movie, Superhero Movie, etc). Part of the genius of Used Cars is to put this broad style right in your face immediately, (You want a sleazy used car salesman? Our guys will bubblegum your bumper on!), and then make you fall in love with all of the leads. Their antics are juvenile, but dammit, nothing could feel more American.
As Zemeckis points out in the absolute-must-listen commentary track offered on this great release (in which Russell, Zemeckis, and Gale seem to be having the time of their life, guffawing their way through the film in the most endearing way imaginable and also shedding some genuine insight into their approach and ideas behind the picture), Rudy Russo is an embodiment of the American dream. He lives in a trailer and his ultimate ambition is to buy his way into a Senate seat… but he plans to do it through sheer chutzpah, pulling himself up by the bootstraps, and cutting every corner he can think of in the name of fulfilling his destiny. The only real difference between Russo and the villainous Fuchs brother is that Rudy seems to have a loyalty to his friends that he just can’t seem to shake. And that is all it takes in the morally bankrupt and wonderful world of Used Cars to make Russo the hero, and Fuchs the villain.
The escalating battle between the Fuchs brothers takes a shockingly dark turn early in the picture, and as Russell again points out in the wonderful commentary, this defining moment (which I won’t spoil for you) will determine whether you are on board for this film or not. It is so preposterous as to make you think “oh, it’s going to be like THAT, huh?”… and you’ll either be along for the ride or you’ll check clean out. Let’s just say Weekend At Bernie’s has to have taken more than a few queues from the Used Cars team. And if you are willing go where the filmmakers take you when they dial up the ridiculous factor in this opening act twist/set up, then you’ll be cheering right along with me as the movie ramps up into a full-on Western by the end, with a stampede of used cars careening across the desert, lead by Russell and his lady love Barbara (Deborah Harmon), complete with stunts, crashes, leaps from car to car, and truck-top fist fights that might as well be on top of covered wagons. Just writing about it right now makes me love it even more and want to sing its praises to anyone who has read this far.
Perhaps the best thing you can say about Used Cars is how thoroughly it keeps you invested as it careens from a set-up that borders on caricature, escalates masterfully as the dueling car dealerships stoop to newer and more outlandish depths of depravity, incorporates wonderful gags and set pieces all laced directly into the characters and their own unique quirks and motivations, and then transforms into the rousing Western I’ve described above. Perhaps like the shifty salesmen the film depicts, Zemeckis and Gale were willing to pull out all the stops to entertain us, and the layers that the film continues to add on build until any concerns about audience-winking or caricature are blown out of the tale pipes of a fleet of cars speeding across the desert.
So while yes, Used Cars includes very broad comedy, which isn’t always laugh out loud funny as much as clever set ups and wonderful performances earning each chuckle, it also builds on itself, offering something to say about the American experience (and about American cinema) and in the end, it offers a rousing tale where story and characters really matter. Used Cars has a beating heart where many failed, similarly broad comedies essentially stop trying after their initial setup and their one-note characters are sketched out.
The Package
I’ve already alluded to how much I enjoyed not just this film, but this home video release as well. Used Cars looks FANTASTIC! The outfits, the colors, the youthful Kurt Russell close-ups, the sweeping shots and enormous set pieces. Twilight Time’s digital restoration here brings forward the visual feast that Used Cars must have been in a theater in 1980. It helps that Zemeckis has always had a keen eye and was only just trying out his particular style with this early entry. The movie is “scrappy” as they say in their own commentary, and has that irrepressible energy that can often come out of youthful inexperience. So in that sense, Used Cars captures lightning in a bottle. There are some practical stunts in this movie that are jaw dropping and it is the kind of work you just don’t see anymore because (in some ways thankfully) digital effects can remove the human risk that was once there. It is hysterical to hear the seasoned veteran Zemeckis say (again, in that amazing commentary) that his balls are jumping into his throat when he watches a stunt where a car drives directly at star Gerrit Graham and veers out of the way JUST in the nick of time.
So yes, for the film itself, and for the wonderful high definition transfer, and for one of the most joyful commentary track experiences I’ve ever had (which isn’t a new track recorded for this release, but rather a commentary ported over from a previous DVD release), I highly recommend scooping up one of the only 3000 copies that Twilight Time will press of Used Cars.
And I’m Out.