Shitey Blue Collar (1978) review

Blue Collar (1978)

Very funny and powerful movie about 3 blue-collar workers who decide to rob their own union, only to slowly realise afterwards that they're all in over their heads.

Richard Pryor is absolutely terrific in it, delivering some memorable funny moments much closer to his angry stand-up routine than any other of his relatively light-hearted films such as:

"My locker's been busted for 6 months now and the company ain't done shit to fix it. Now I have to stick my finger in some tiny ass hole. I cut my finger, man. Two weeks and it ain't healed yet. Now I have to use ball-point pens, I'm sticking them in there and they keep breaking off. And I blew 20 dollars in ball-point pens."

"Hey. Be reasonable, Zeke."

"Reasonable? Man, fick my bick."

The other two workers played by Harvey Keitel and Yaphet Kotto also deliver some rather memorable performances as respectively a man who's forced to work two jobs to pay for his daughter's dental treatment, and a man who throws frequent parties and is in some trouble with loan sharks.

All and all the three actors play off each other very well, and you really get this sort of feeling as though you were hanging out with some close friends. There's some great moments of light comedy between the three men such as the 2 bar scenes near the opening of the film. The three actors manage to deliver all of this very convincingly and not a single scene at all forced.

Then around half-way through the film they go ahead and rob their union. The movie then turns into this serious crime thriller, but somehow manages to do this very naturally where it somehow manages to feel like the same film and not just two separate films bridged into one (such as another of Keitel's films From Dusk Till Dawn).

There's some heavy themes dealt with here such as the effects of union corruption, racism, the importance of friendship, the importance of one's family over another's, and paranoia to name a few. Again, none of this seems forced and has such a natural progression that you forget you're watching the same movie.

There's also a great original soundtrack by Ry Cooder and Captain Beefheart, and is used very appropriately with some scenes deliberately lacking music in order to deliver a much more tense feeling.

There's also some great shots in the film such as the opening the film showing a bunch of heavy machinery being operated with sparks from welders flying practically towards the screen and hammers hitting against metal sheets. Again, this is very well complimented by the choice of music with the 'Hard worked, fucked over man' song by Captain Beefheart playing in the background.

The movie's also notable for containing the most swearing in a feature film at the time (Later bet out by Scarface) and a scene involving Harvey Keitel and Richard Pryor dildo fencing.

All and all. If you think your hard-hitting dramas are lacking some didlo fencing scenes then this is the movie for you.