Bustin' Loose

Bustin' Loose (1981)

*** (out of 4)

Richard Pryor plays a con man who is blackmailed by his probation officer into taking eight troubled kids on a bus trip from Philadelphia to Seattle. Having been made in a politically incorrect time and featuring Pryor with troubled kids means you're going to have a great load of laughs but the film also has a heart of gold but more on this in a bit. As for pure laughs this is probably the best film I've seen from Pryor, although Moving is still my favorite movie of his due to it just being a personal favorite. This movie here features non-stop laughs from start to finish and it really gives Pryor a chance to act and he proves to be very reliable here. Pryor does a great job with the comedy and really delivers the jokes but what's most refreshing is seeing how well he does with the more dramatic moments. The film has a heart of gold but I think there are a few too many tender scenes meant to make the viewer get tears in their eyes. A lot of these dramatic scenes are pretty heartfelt but I think there are just too many of them. Pryor handles all of this very well though. Cicely Tyson plays the woman trying to save the kids and she's does a good job, although the romantic subplot with Pryor is pretty weak. There are numerous great scenes in the film including a great sequence where Pryor runs into the KKK but the highlight of the movie is certainly the scene where Pryor is driving the bus and three of the kids, acting like thugs, come up and start messing with him.

Richard Pryor plays Joe Braxton, a multiple time loser that failed yet again at trying to score. This time he tries to steal from an electronics store. The judge gives him 10 years probation in lieu of prison. His probation officer, Donald (Robert Christian), has a deal for Joe: take his girlfriend, Vivian (Cicely Tyson), and a busload of discarded youth to Washington state or face prison time. Reluctantly, Joe agrees.

I see that Pryor wrote and produced this feature. It is not his funniest work but it is probably his most positive work. Just like him, the kids were considered losers. Vivian saw more in the kids and she would begin to see more in Joe as well.

It's a feel good story even if the cacophony of the children got irksome. It's hard to hate this movie even if I didn't love it.

Bustin' Loose is nice movie starring Richard Pryor that is a cross country comedy that is warm hearted without coming across corny and still be funny on top of that. Richard Pryor is a thief on parole and as a condition of his parole, his parole officer has him drive a bus full of special ed kids from Phiily to rural Washington to live on teacher's aunt and uncle's farm after funding was cut and the kids need a place to go. Throughout the course of the trip, bus driver Joe Braxton grows to dig the kids and bonds with them. The characters in this movie are no angels and are portrayed in a more realistic manner than some fluff that Disney or The Hallmark Channel would crap out. They are presented as real people with real problems, who aspire to travel to Washington for a better life. There still is a lot of really funny stuff in this movie and Richard Pryor is one of the best comic actors of all time, but he also delivers on the more emotional scenes as well, really making Joe Braxton a likeable guy.

Over the years when nothing else is on I watch Bustin' Loose from time to time, it is such a good feel good movie. Neat story which has Richard Pryor as con man Joe Braxton who is maneuvered into taking a group of disturbed kids from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania along with their teacher Cicely Tyson to a farm in Washington state owned by the aunt and uncle of Cicely Tyson. This movie is a great journey of respect and friendship it shows just how that no matter how different people are they can become friends and learn to care and respect one another. This is not typical Richard Pryor you don't find much strong language but Pryor is plenty enough his comical and funny self to make this film a winner. So if you haven't seen this give it a watch it shows from time to time on cable. Probably one of the better movies of Richard Pryor.

I guess that "Bustin' Loose" is most famous because it was during the production of this movie that Richard Pryor had his near-death experience with freebasing. But there's more to the movie than that. Pryor plays an ex-con who gets a second chance by getting assigned to drive a bus load of special needs children from Philadelphia to Washington state.

Much of the humor derives from Richard Pryor's and Cicely Tyson's personalities bouncing off of each other: he's the irresponsible goof-off, she's the stern teacher. There's also a look at the children's stories: there's a blind boy, a pyromaniac, and a former child prostitute from Vietnam. And then of course, there's the scene with the Ku Klux Klan; I bet that Richard Pryor had wanted to do something like that for years!

So, it's a pretty silly movie, but still very enjoyable. It's too bad that Richard Pryor is no longer with us.