Hot Rod (1979)
A freewheeling drag racer enters a local championship meet and finds himself head-to-head with the tyrannical town boss who has already arranged for his own son to win.
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What a waste of my time!!!
Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay
It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.
A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.
Dialog as banal as this makes several scenes more than a little cringe-worthy. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I saw this movie years ago as a rental and the guys I watched it with along with myself laughed quite a few times at some of the implausible things we saw, as well as the absolutely BAD dialog and cardboard cutout characters. As a matter of fact, we still use the "9/16ths" comment as part of our expressions at the track, mostly as a method of disrespect. Once things got to the dragstrip, however, "Hot Rod" was a bit more palatable. I enjoyed the rocket Funny Car making a pass down the track (rocket cars having been outlawed for nearly 20 years now), and some of the old school drag cars really gave a look into the late 70's drag scene. Being a drag racer myself, I appreciate the history. The story is standard TV movie fare (this was an ABC Friday Night Movie after all), and even after saying this, I still went and bought a copy on VHS. Should it be on DVD? Considering the dreck that's already on DVD ("reality" shows and the like), I'd vote for a DVD release. File this one as "so bad it's good".
This Movie contains enough Raw Drag and Street Racing to be a great Drag Racing movie, you can almost smell the rubber and smoke.If you didn't love Hemi's before watching the movie you will after. I think this movie made Grey primer cool, and as for Willy's Coupes! Well you will just have to watch the movie.One of my favorite parts is when they all sneak into the museum and steal the Blower from Munn's own car, Sticking it to the man is always good watching.Gregg Henry who plays Brian Edison ( the lead ) is believable as the happy go lucky guy next door type, who we can all relate to.The Soundtrack fits well to the movie and brings you right into the story line, makes you wish for Drive In Movie's and Summer.I wish it was out on DVD.
I also have been looking for this movie for about 20 years. I never knew the name of it and any "Car Person" I spoke to never knew what the heck I was talking about.Thanks to this site I was able to obtain the name and also locate a copy on Ebay.Thanks for all the info. I can't wait to receive the movie and watch it again. If I can help someone to locate this movie I can give you the name of seller on ebay or at least send you in the area I searched to find another copy. I think this last movie will conclude my car movie collection.
I just love this movie!!! From the first time that I had watched this movie, I just can't get enough of it. I remember first watching it when it re-aired late night on our local ABC channel at 2am in the morning. Ever since then I searched for the movie not knowing that my mother had actually taped the movie. After about eleven years, I watched the movie again. All in all for being a low budget film, I think they did one heck of a job. I also really love the small bits of humor throughout the movie as well as the music and you can't forget the racing!!