Used Cars (1980)

"Zany 1980s Screwball Comedy"

Before director Robert Zemeckis gave us BACK TO THE FUTURE, and WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT he made USED CARS, a wacky comedy from 1980 that starts broad and gets broader in every sense. 

Two rival second hand car dealerships exist opposite each other on a street in Phoenix, Arizona. One is run by Luke Fuchs (Jack Warden), assisted by wide boy Rudy Russo (Kurt Russell) who has plans to run for senator, Jeff (Gerrit Graham) and Frank (Frank McCrae). The other is run by Luke's brother Roy (also Warden) who is determined to get his hand's on his brother's property.

When Luke dies it's up to Rudy and his team to pretend the old man is still alive while ramping up their increasingly outrageous (and illegal) ad campaign to sell more cars. When Luke's daughter Barbara (Deborah Harmon) arrives, a potential legal minefield of a misquote from her on one of the the ads sets the scene for an increasingly ludicrous final act.

A fast paced comedy that never lets up for its 113 minutes (most comedies of this kind clock in at under 90 just because it's so difficult to maintain the tone), USED CARS is the kind of abrasive, silly, politically incorrect and just outright rude comedy that doesn't get made anymore, and depending how much you yearn for / despise films like that will dictate whether or not you'll get on with it. 

If you do, it's actually a very funny, well-made comedy, well acted by a cast of familiar faces (some of them painfully young - stand up Michael MacKean). With its car chases, lowbrow humour and sense of knockabout fun USED CARS comes across as a more intellectual version of a Hal Needham film (CANNONBALL RUN, SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT).

Eureka's Blu-ray comes with a Zemeckis / Russell / co-writer & producer Bob Gale commentary track, two isolated score tracks (one being the unused Ernest Gold score), a making of, Kurt Russell radio interview, out-takes, gag reel, radio spots and still galleries. You also get a booklet with new writing on the film by Scott Harrison and Phil Hoad if you get the first pressing. 

Robert Zemeckis' USED CARS is out on Blu-ray from Eureka on Monday 12th August 2019