Director: Paul Schrader
Starring: Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, Yaphet Kotto
Running Time: 114 minutes
Running Time: 114 minutes
Synopsis: In Detroit, car assembly line worker Zeke Brown (Richard Pryor) is experiencing financial hardship and is unhappy with the union leadership's dismissive attitude. His friend and co-worker Jerry (Harvey Keitel) is also struggling to provide for his family, while their colleague Smokey (Yaphet Kotto) has a hefty criminal record. The three disgruntled men plot a seemingly simple heist of the union office safe, but the outcome is not what they expect.
What Works Well: Writer and debut director Paul Schrader taps into working class frustrations and emerges with a forceful story of economic malaise, racial tensions, worker exploitation, and power imbalance. The themes are nurtured organically through the granular experiences of three ordinary men pushed into crime, where they find both less and more than they bargained for. Richard Pryor delivers an energetic career highlight in a mostly dramatic role, and is ably supported by Harvey Keitel and Yaphet Kotto. Assorted supervisors, union reps, and oily bosses represent an entrenched system, and Schrader punctuates the drama with sweaty images of life on the assembly line set to the thumping sound of Jack Nitzsche's Hard Workin' Man.
What Does Not Work As Well: Smokey's backstory and personal life are deficient compared to Zeke and Jerry, and their wives are reduced to afterthoughts.
Key Quote:
Smokey (voiceover): They pit the lifers against the new boy and the young against the old. The black against the white. Everything they do is to keep us in our place.
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