La route de la violence

Carrol Jo Hummer (Jan-Michael Vincent) returns home from the Air Force to marry Jerri (Kay Lenz). He borrows money to buy an used truck to be an independent trucker. He seeks work from his late father's partner Duane Haller (Slim Pickens) but he finds the business corrupt. Carrol Jo is unwilling to haul contrabands and gets beaten up by thugs. He is blackballed and decides to fight back.

It's a little ridiculous that he gets a load from Buck. It would be easy for them to call the corrupt cop and plant something on him. This gets geared up quickly. The danger starts high and has trouble going higher. They can't start with violence, corrupt cop, and a powerful cabal, then scheme a setup. The setup could have been great but they let him off too easily. Carrol Jo is not particularly smart. Once the killings start, it's time to go Rambo. There is a potential for this to be Rambo but the movie can't let him kill. It's a little infuriating. This should be about a lone driver being driven to take revenge on his tormentors. Instead, this insists on a man of the people movie. There is an obvious edit decision. When he's the lone Rambo at the end, Pops is riding shotgun in one of the action scenes. That's obviously from the earlier ride. His final rampage is not nearly enough and again he's not allowed to kill. This story is begging for revenge but it insists on justice.

This movie gave a slightly glamorized (and dirty) view into the world of the American trucking industry circa 1973-75. Without crossing over into making a film only truckers and their kin would enjoy, they kept the story and the action fast-paced yet clear as to what is happening unseen. It's not a "CB Fad" movie. A very "Americana" type film which gives a terrific look at the middle American fighting for himself and his ideals. Even though it is a semi-cheesy "B" movie by any standard, the characters are easily related to and the storyline is easy to get involved with, and the action is fun without getting too excessive (gee- a trucker who isn't a gravity defying martial artist!).

Jan-Michael Vincent is at perhaps his best, with Kay Lenz as the perfect naggy whiny trucker's old lady- just cute enough to want to come home to. The musical score is cliché' by today's standards, but dead-on for that time. Some of the old country tunes actually sound pretty good even today (though the twang twang stuff, and the musically reproduced truck horns grew old after while).

This came out with the CB fad and is really a vintage film now. Is it a classic? Well, the truck driving scenes are classic. The other stuff like the plot and ending are apparently fabricated just so we could have a place for the great action. Where else can you see someone climb from the cab of a moving truck onto the van trailer's roof? Where else can you see a semi hit a bobtail truck tractor in the tandems and spin it off the road? Where else can you see a diesel truck burn? Where else can you see a truck tractor jump through the air? Jan-Michael Vincent shows us he can actually back a semi to a loading dock, too. White Line Fever gets the point across that truck driving is a great way of life. Then why was it so hard for him to make a living at it? Couldn't he just sign up with Mayflower Van Lines or something?

This film catapulted Jan-Michael Vincent to stardom level for awhile, and contained a lot of good, exciting action scenes as well as politically correct assessment of some of the problems of independent truckers at the time. Of course, it contained some action and fighting scenes that are somewhat unbelievable, but in the context of the story, they work. Kay Lenz is the believable, not too lovely hero's wife who downplayed her attractiveness displayed in later films. There are lots of eye-pleasing shots of trucks and highway mayhem, and, of course, from a trucker and real-life perspective, lots of technically inaccurate scenes, but, all in all one of the very best trucking movies ever made -- and I've seen 'em all! Good cast, good flick. This $2 million film went on to be a big grosser.

So I said "It better not end like this" and it did, a very disappointing end but towards the finish of the movie you could see the directors panic as he struggled to find an ending so I was aware that a 'bail out' was on the cards. To be fair even I half way through the movie I thought how on Earth are they going to end this.

A unique trucker movie inasmuch as Trucker movies are usually a lot lighter this has some very dark and heavy moments which in turn keeps the viewer unsettled which is only a good thing in an action drama.

But the Director needs to look up the word 'Revenge' in a dictionary or at least ask Charles Bronson (Once upon a time in the west) how it's done.

The entire cast put in a good performance and the script and pacey direction keep things moving. JMV was great.

Plus some nice old seventies American Trucks.