Golden Harvest bankrolled this picture? Part one.

Rating: Null/10 (20 June 2004)

Cannonball Run (1981) was one of those road race movie genres that was reborn during the mid 70's. The first of them was released by New World Pictures and it was the entertaining Cannonball, starring David Carradine and the Roger Corman players. A few years later Hollywood and Golden Harvest teamed together to make a washed up Hollwood stars road film about the mythical cross country race called The Cannonball Run. Yes, this film has more wash-ups and has been than you can shake a stick at. It looks like a who's who of former and future stars of Hollywood Squares. Golden Harvest produced half the film and they used their stroke to put in the company's two biggest stars Jackie Chan and Michael Hui. The problem is they play Japanese race car drivers. Japanese race car drivers who speak cantonese?!

But the ring leader of this motley crew is old Burt Reynolds. Yes, him and Hal Needham made this film to please his Smokey and the Bandit crowd. Needham should stick with directing stunt scenes and leave film-making to the professionals.Not as bad as the later films in this series but not quite that entertaining. Stick with Cannonball for some fun
stuff. If you must watch every single out of work or fading star in Hollywood ham up the screen then this one's your cup of
tea, others beware!
Average.
C-