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Breaker Breaker
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by Good Times Home Video
Sales Rank: 75131
Price: $7.98
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Made in the heady days of movies like <I>Convoy</I> and <I>Smokey and the Bandit</I>, when CB radios were expected to create the kind of communication network the Internet has provided, <I>Breaker! Breaker!</I> tells the tale of J.D. Dawes (Chuck Norris of <I>Good Guys Wear Black</I> and TV's <I>Walker, Texas Ranger</I>), a trucker in tight jeans and a blonde shag. While J.D. is defending his arm-wrestling reputation in a truck stop poolroom, his younger brother Billy is being taken advantage of by the crooked cops of Texas City, California, a former ghost town turned would-be tourist trap, run by a corrupt judge named Joshua Trimmings. When the scam gets out of hand, Billy disappears--and J.D. comes to town to find him. There are many campy things to appreciate about <I>Breaker! Breaker!</I> (the sequined collar of the shirt Norris wears during a meditation teaching, or the glorious air-brushed eagle on Norris's van), and by contemporary Jackie Chan/<I>The Matrix</I> standards the fighting is slow and unspectacular--but ironically, this actually gives the action some grit and makes the blows feel more visceral than the wild flips and kicks of more recent movies. The chase scenes have surprising momentum, and there's some fine scenery-chewing by George Murdock as the wicked judge. And for a curious bit of trivia, Jack Nance--who must have been playing the lead in David Lynch's <I>Eraserhead</I> concurrent with <I>Breaker! Breaker!</I>--plays a trucker friend of Norris's. <I>--Bret Fetzer</I>
Viewer Reviews
The best thing you can say about this movie is that it's not bad for Chuck Norris' first leading role. He hadn't developed much of a screen presence yet and was basically just trying to get through the acting scenes so he could karate-up the bad guys. This film tries to capitalize on the CB and trucker craze of the 70's and starts off with an underpowered but spirited little "Convoy" knock off...er...homage over the opening credits.
The action is pretty simple and straightforward but you have to remember that audiences back then were less sophisticated in regards to martial arts action than audiences are today. For years in Hollywood it was considered unsporting or dirty pool to fight a man in any way but pure fisticuffs. Seeing a man, especially a Westerner, kick another dude to pieces was pretty new to moviegoers back then and it was definitely enough to WOW the crowds.
Chuck's character isn't really well defined here. We know he's a trucker who helps take care of his kid brother. We know he's an arm wrestling champ of some sort and we know he teaches martial arts and meditation, while wearing some very 70's clothes, to some guys who look like 70's porn stars. We also know that he shouldn't wear those tight 70's jeans. I suspect years of high kicks have developed Chuck's gluteus to the point that he rivals 227's Jackee' in the bodonkadonk department. But you can see the beginnings of Chuck's later screen character, the solid decent guy who just wants to live his life and do right by himself and his family and friends.
George Murdock does a good over-the-top job as the corrupt judge. The rest of the cast seem less like actors and more like people who happened to be standing nearby when the director yelled "Action".
The writing is pretty unsophisticated and leaves several key plotlines unresolved.
Overall it just seems unfinished, unpolished, like it was made by film students as a class project. It does have it's good points though, like some decent action and some goofy 70's clothes and attitude, and the final scene where the ad hoc "Legion of Truckers" comes to Chuck's rescue is fun and probably where the production spent most of its money. It's a must for die hard Norris fans of course because you can see your hero's very beginnings and how far he's come (or not). For anyone else it's a so-so martial arts actioner.
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Breaker Breaker
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