Film

Cannonball (1976)

Director: Paul Bartel

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

In many ways this is the film Bartel wanted Death Race 2000 to be. Once again starring David Carradine and constructed around another Trans-American race, it is both better and worse. The comedy cut from Death Race by producer Roger Corman - here guesting as the DA who tries to ban the race - is now present with a vengeance: Gerrit Graham's would-be country singer and a marvellous comic-strip pile-up of cars provide the film's highlights. That said, Cannonball lacks its predecessor's dramatic tension, and by the middle of the film Bartel's disregard for narrative in favour of a series of jokes leaves no dramatic resolution. The movie also features a number of in-joke guest appearances, including (in addition to Corman and Bartel himself) Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Kaplan, Joe Dante, Allan Arkush and Sylvester Stallone.

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