The 8-Wheel Beast

A truck-driving movie with pretensions towards social realism. Events start unpromisingly with an utterly predictable conflict between the cool old hand and the hothead novice. Things turn lukewarm with some background detail. Then the last third raises questions about going independent, and the ensuing problems with the unions and the Mafia. It ends up with more than a nod in the direction of The Wages of Fear. That the film improves on its atrocious beginnings is more a matter for relief than any indication of quality.