50 Word Review: ‘Blue Collar’ (1979)
Punch in and punch out
Taxi Driver screenwriter Paul Schrader’s directorial debut is a grimy working-class tragicomedy about three Detroit autoworkers who decide to steal from their corrupt union.
It’s a pathetic heist.
The themes Schrader will be obsessed with for the next few decades are fully formed and on display: masculinity, loneliness, and violence. The grunts in Blue Collar are broke and broken, and the system takes advantage of them. The whole system. The bosses. The labor leaders. The FBI and the IRS. These little guys never stood a chance.
Aside from Shrader’s talents, Blue Collar is most memorable for its stellar cast, especially the leads. Yaphet Kotto plays a charming, cunning bruiser, and Harvey Keitel is a family guy and shnook. Legendary comedian Richard Pryor burns brighter than a welding arc as a bitter, angry nobody. These three guzzle beer, complain and plot. The ending is a heartbreaking explosion of rage and racism.
Thanks for the reminder. I missed this movie when it came out and somehow life got in the way and I still haven’t caught it. I’m a fan of everyone involved. . . Except maybe Mamet, against whom I harbor a couple of political grudges.