L'as de coeur

You sort of have to like these Hal Needham/Reynolds movies to like this.

The plot is weak. The dialog is mildly amusing. I found the whole chicken sponsor thing pretty funny though.

Loni Anderson fans might enjoy her ridiculous role as the naive PR person for the chicken chain

There's cleavage shown from time to time which some will appreciate

I have read the book, and the movie is quite different than the book. The book is a series of stories, possibly tall tales, loosely based on the experiences of the writers in racing. It's mostly about sex, heavy drinking and wrecking/racing cars. I enjoyed it a lot. The book is better than the movie IMO

I think Nabors and Reynolds have some funny interactions.

Auto racing is rather limited, probably due to cost. But you do get to see some vintage cars and racing footage

Just remember this is a silly pointless movie, in the spirit of movies like Smokey and the Bandit and maybe you will enjoy it like I do

When Bewitched was running on television half of the plots involved Darrin's job where he and Larry Tate every week contended with yet another egotistical company president. The plot of Stroker Ace hearkens back to those days of Bewitched and it has Burt Reynolds as a NASCAR driver doing everything possible to get out from under a contract with a sponsor who's a blithering idiot.

Although Burt certainly gets in his innings in Stroker Ace, especially seeing him in a chicken suit and driving his car in a race in one, the best one in Stroker Ace by far is Ned Beatty. Beatty got an Academy Award nomination for playing the all powerful, malevolent media mogul in Network. Here he takes the same character and plays it for laughs and he's absolutely hysterical. Beatty owns a fried chicken company and he could easily have been one of McMahon&Tate's clients from Bewitched.

If outrageous overacting lead by Ned Beatty isn't reason enough to watch Stroker Ace, than certainly the curvaceous Loni Anderson should do. Loni is giving out with her best Marilyn Monroe imitation as Beatty's advertising person who thinks that what Beatty is asking of Reynolds is tasteless and stupid. Of course she falls for Burt on the screen and in real life.

I'm not a NASCAR fan, but I don't think you have to be to watch Stroker Ace and enjoy it. I have however become a fan of the Professional Bull Riders in recent years and they have their sponsors set up in a similar fashion as does NASCAR for its various drivers. I don't think the PBR has any sponsors as outrageous as Ned Beatty. If this film was about the PBR I can just see Beatty insisting to Guilherme Marchi that he ride a bull in a chicken suit or something equally bizarre.

The film got bad reviews and I can't see why. It's not sophisticated comedy to be sure, but it's not all that bad. And Ned Beatty alone is worth seeing and appreciating Stroker Ace.

Stroker Ace,a film directed by Hal Needham (the same director of such souped-up hits,like Smokey and The Bandit and Hooper),is a real surprise for the audience!it offers a lot of fun and laughs,all of this accomplished by dangerous and incredible scenes of action,which make Speed look like a boring movie!the character was made for Burt Reynolds,and combines with his own personality and way of interpretation!it's a nice movie,that everybody should discover,specially because it symbolizes a time when what really counted in the box-offices was the protagonist's charisma,and not stupid special effects!good times,when Burt was the best...and this time is going to be back!

Stroker Ace (1983)

1/2 (out of 4)

I must admit that when people say Burt Reynolds I gladly call myself a fan since I love DELIVERANCE and enjoy both THE LONGEST YARD and SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT. So far I've stayed away from his 80s output but decided to tackle my first one with this turkey and it's rather sad if you really think about how bad this thing is. In the film Reynolds plays Stroker Ace, a hot-shot Nascar driver who signs a contract with a chicken king (Ned Beatty) who soon has the star on the road making a fool of himself. With the help of his mechanic (Jim Nabors) and another associate (Loni Anderson), Ace must try and find a way to get fired and released from the contract. Earlier I said it was sad to watch something like this considering some of the great things Reynolds had done in his career so it's rather stupid of me to highly recommend this film due to how incredibly bad it is. I really wasn't expecting too much but it's rather shocking to see how unfunny this comedy is and the only reason it avoids a BOMB rating from me is simply because it remains entertaining simply so you can see how much worse it's going to get. The movie has no plot to think of and what little there is is just downright stupid. Do we really believe someone would sign this contract without reading it? The movie contains one bad joke after another and we get at least four with Reynolds looking in the mirror to comment on how good his hair looks. I honestly can't say he gives a bad performance because he plays that same Good Ol' Boy that he made a career out of. He's certainly going through the motions but he comes off looking as if he thinks he's doing a great job. Nabors is slightly charming in a few scenes but Beatty comes off pretty bad throughout. Anderson's entire character seems like something from another movie and the supporting cast includes various Nascar drivers, Bubba Smith and even Elvira pops up in perhaps the best gag of the film. I think the scariest thing is that this movie apparently did pretty well at the box office and this wasn't the film that would eventually kill Reynolds career. I plan on going through more of his output from this decade and I really hope nothing is worse than this here. Fingers crossed.

NASCAR driver Burt Reynolds signs a contract with Ned Beatty to drive his car and hates it. He also courts nice girl Loni Anderson and has an on-track rivalry with Parker Stevenson.

Burt Reynolds was a fine actor, but you'd never know it from his career choices. He passed on the Jack Nicholson role in TERMS OF ENDEARMENT because he had a handshake agreement with director Hal Needham to make this; it seems it didn't occur to him to ask Needham to wait. Instead he made this lazy movie, with no dramatic tension and no energy in the comedy bits. It looks like Needham assembled all his friends, made a movie, and cut in some race-track sequences, with no one putting in much effort to learn their lines. If you want to see Reynolds in a chicken suit, or Loni Anderson lying on a bed in her clothes, her eyes shut, and looking like a Barbie doll, this is the movie for you. Not for me.