A lot of stars race across country.

Rating: 6/10 (22 December 2009)

This movie was pretty good, not the best comedy of the 1980's its main attraction was less the plot or anything the movie had to offer, but rather its huge cast of characters. Burt Reynolds and Dom Delouise are the headliners, but aside from them there is Roger Moore of James Bond fame, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., Adrien Barbeau and even Jackie Chan. The plot is fairly simple, the cannonball run is about to take place and a host of oddballs is entering to win the prize. Burt and Dom are on the same team and they figure out the perfect vehicle to race cross country to avoid the police if possible an ambulance. It is actually brilliant and quite frankly I do not see how they did not destroy everyone else who was racing, because most of the vehicles consisted of sporty cars, the types of which the cops are looking for. Granted Adrian's team had a nifty trick that worked a lot, but was not fool proof. The comedy also at times makes no sense, they establish that Burt and Dom know Sammy and Dean's team, early before the race yet for some reason Dom's character gets fooled by them later during the race. There is also a rather pointless fight scene near the end of this one too, where all the main stars duke it out with a biker gang or something. Also, Dom's character has a bit of a split personality which as a kid I liked, but now I have to say it was rather silly. Still, it was an okay movie and is better than the sequel. Part two is essentially the same movie and I thought even Speed Zone was better than that one.