DVD Release
Truck Turner (1974)
R1 / NTSC DVD
MGM / 2001
Director: Jonathan Kaplan
Writers: Jerry Wilkes, Michael Allin, Leigh Chapman, Oscar Williams
Cast: Isaac Hayes, Nichelle Nichols, Yaphet Kotto, & Alan Weeks.
Review by James Garfield
Truck Turner (Isaac Hayes!), football pro turned skip tracer, tracks down a pimp named Gator and ends up killing him in a shootout. Gator’s madam Dorinda (Nichelle Nichols!) is infuriated, and takes out a hit on Turner’s life, with the reward being her stable of whores. Turner finds a major challenge in dealing with the most formidable of those vying for the prize, another pimp named Blue (Yaphet Kotto) who is a little short on scruples.
An exciting entry in the blaxploitation genre, Truck Turner gives us a very likable hero and involves him in some thrilling action. Hayes wields both fists and gun well (and, of course, sings on the soundtrack), and a great supporting cast full of cult favorites (Dick Miller, Tara Strohmeier, Scatman Crothers, Charles Cyphers) backs him up all the way. The cinema doesn’t deal that often with the lives of bail bondsmen– the only other film I can think of that does so is Jackie Brown, whose director, Quentin Tarantino, was obviously influenced by this and pretty much every other blaxploitation movie in existence– so here a little light gets shone on that neglected profession, which probably isn’t as action-packed in real life. The dialogue is frequently hilarious, both intentionally and unintentionally.
This one falls solidly into the top 5 blaxploitation films of all time—it’s fast-paced and funny. It’s especially awesome seeing “Star Trek”’s Nichelle Nichols playing a ruthless, foul-mouthed lowlife. Director Jonathan Kaplan was on his way to big-studio Hollywood, but he still could have had an excellent career turning out flicks like this. I wish he and/or Hayes had done a commentary track for the DVD, but we can’t have everything.
