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 is gritty 70's B-movie action at its best. The CB radio craze was at its height when this movie first came out (I saw it on a double bill with "Jaws" at an outdoor)and the country was fascinated by the lives of long distance truckers. There were also a lot of violent films portraying the "little guy" sticking up for himself against the powers that be. These concepts coalesce in this fast-paced and tough action movie.

Carroll Jo Hummer is an independent long haul trucker whose whole life is tied up in two things: his wife and his truck The Blue Mule. He's no angel but he knows corruption when he sees it. When his greasy boss Duane (good ol' boy Slim Pickens) puts the arm on Hummer to deliver illegal cigarettes and slot machines, Carroll Jo refuses to go along. In doing so, he becomes an inspiration to other wildcat truckers looking to buck the system but he also becomes the target of a vicious campaign of intimidation endorsed by the corporate slimeballs in their ivory towers.

There's fist-fighting, road racing and down and dirty dialog galore as Hummer's war with his enemies escalates to "Walking Tall" levels. The concluding image of the Blue Mule smashing the glass emblem of the corrupt corporation is iconic.

This is a B-movie for sure and no Oscar contender, but the lives of the truckers are portrayed with some grit and realism. There's some breath-taking footage of cross-country journeys, particularly in a snowy Utah, and there's hardly a dull moment. Jan-Michael Vincent does fine as Hummer and it may be one of the best roles of his career (he did all his own stunts).

And how can you go wrong with a 70's cast that includes L.Q. Jones, Dick Miller, R. G. Armstrong, Don Porter, Kay Lenz, Sam Laws and Slim Pickens? Only obvious signs of sloppiness were a couple of shots where the boom mike or its shadow are visible. That's a minor quibble. If you're looking for a hell-raisin' bare knuckled story that pits a tough man against the odds, chances are this is what you are looking for.

A standard but enjoyable trucking flick of the mid 1970s, this makes up for in action what it lacks in scale and budget. The plot is pretty simplistic, with Jan-Michael Vincent playing a new trucker trying to organise union power with his co-workers and fight the corrupt bosses. Lots of driving, chasing, and some good old-fashioned fighting, and it's all light and harmless with it.

I think this movie gets better on the second viewing. When I first sat down to watch this, I was expecting a drama. Then it turned into a violent action movie. Then we were back to a drama. Then we were in a labor movie. Then 70's whacka whacka-guitar action moment again. Chase scene through cardboard boxes. Then hospital drama again. Whew!!! Anyway, JMV is great as Carrol Jo Hummer! He's a born action star, and he looks the part in this. His girl friend (Kay Lenz) is adorable. I would have rather had a more basic drama, as these two actors really have great chemistry on screen. Don't get me wrong - the truck chase scenes are great too, but the bad guys in this movie kind of suck. Their wardrobe is horrible, and you don't really know why they are persecuting Carrol Jo so much. There are some pretty violent moments that take you off guard. They kill off a couple of fun characters for no reason. And the end - after the great truck crashing into the sign moment - really makes no sense at all.

Just take this for what it is - a strange 70's action movie with good eye candy in it!

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.