Dollar Tree Cinema: Smokey and the Bandit II

“Smokey and the Bandit II” (1980)
Starring Burt Reynolds, Jackie Gleason, Sally Field, Jerry Reed, Dom DeLuise
Directed by Hal Needham
Screenplay by Jerry Belson and Brock Yates, story by Michael Kane
Rated PG (mostly due to language)

After my stepdad introduced me to “Smokey and the Bandit,” I would recommend it to friends by describing it as “'Dukes of Hazzard' with beer and a truck.” The truck part made sense, as my earliest dream jobs were monster truck driver or garbage man. The beer, I think, must have been a reference to humor columnist Dave Barry's constant references to beer, as I was too young to have consumed it then and never really developed a taste for it.

The point is, I thought the movie worked just because it had cool stuff, primarily cars jumping and crashing. I've grown weary over the years of “criminal-with-a-heart-of-gold” stories, but I didn't care here, even without the added motivation of Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Gleason) being something less than a paragon of law enforcement virtue. I may have looked up at one point just why it was illegal to transport Coors beer from Texarkana to Atlanta, but I don't remember and I still don't really care.

So buying the sequel at Dollar Tree was a no-brainer, even if I wasn't using this blog to justify my probl- er, purchases.

Like the first, I watched, and probably recorded, “Smokey and the Bandit II” on TBS. I don't think I ever watched the whole thing, so I only remembered bits and pieces: returning characters, an elephant, light politics and a lot more police cars. I also remember it not being quite as much fun as the original, but I figured cars jumping, cars crashing and a big truck couldn't miss.

I was wrong.

I don't like to trash people's work, and I got a chuckle out of learning the late Hal Needham took out a full-page ad in Variety showing him sitting in a wheelbarrow full of cash when critics blasted this movie. But I get where they were coming from.

The film does have several key ingredients young Evan overlooked: the cast. Reynolds, Gleason, Field and Reed all return, and watching the movies now, I appreciate that their talents and chemistry elevated the original and made the second at least passingly enjoyable. Needham was a legendary stunt performer and the vehicular action in the first movie is top notch, but the movie might not have been as special with different actors.

It opens with Bandit's benefactors from the first film, Big Enos Burdette and his son Little Enos, engaged in a campaign for the governorship of Texas, where the slinging of mud, even actual mud, would have been a decided de-escalation. Big Enos and his opponent are called to the carpet by the sitting governor, when the elder Burdette hears the outgoing chief executive angrily demand someone deliver a crate to the Republican National Convention in Dallas nine days.

Big Enos decides to enlist the Bandit, who has gone off the radar and is rumored to be slipping from his legendary days of smuggling and showing off. Turns out, he's dealing with the sting of his breakup with Carrie (Field), aka Frog, and the failure of his country music career to launch. Unable to get Bandit motivated and back in shape even with the promise of a $400,000 payday, Cledus “Snowman” Snow (Reed) calls in an assist from Carrie, who leaves the sheriff's hapless son Junior (Mike Henry) at the altar, again.

There's a training montage that pushes the boundaries of absurd before they finally get rolling to Miami, where they're informed the crate has to be in quarantine for another three weeks. Bandit and Snowman aren't going to let little things like rules and laws stand in their way, so they break in and find a massive crate housing an elephant who Cledus compares to his aunt Chartlotte.

The name sticks, and Charlotte takes a liking to Bandit after he removes a splinter from her foot. After a face-off with Sheriff Justice, they're on the road again, but Charlotte is sick. Fortunately, they run into a recently immigrated physician (Reynolds' Cannonball Running mate Dom DeLuise) who bills himself as the top gynecologist in Pompeii and trick him into coming along for the ride.

The rekindling of romance between Carrie and Bandit sputters with the news that Charlotte is pregnant and Doc's recommendation they not keep moving her. Focused on his payday and preserving his legend, Bandit insists they keep going. Carrie bolts, and Bandit and Snowman find themselves in the crosshairs of not only Sheriff Justice, but his cousins, the effeminate Texas Highway Patrolman Gaylord Justice* and singing Canadian Mounted Policeman Reginald Van Justice, both also played by Gleason.

They lure Bandit into a trap, but he's rescued by a herd of truckers led by Snowman. What follows is a smorgasbord of car-smashing stunts, the best of the movie by far, but almost feeling like too little, too late.

Bandit wants to press on to Dallas, even with Charlotte in labor, but a tear falling from the elephant's eye causes his heart to grow three sizes and he leaves her to give birth at a wildlife sanctuary. Then it's off to a reunion with Carrie, with Charlotte and her baby boy in tow in circus trailers that I guess they bought with the rest of the advance money from the Burdettes.

Again, the cast does great with the material they have. DeLuise is naturally a funny addition, and Gleason is particularly great. The beeping monitor he wears to warn him when his blood pressure's getting too high underscores some funny moments, making me laugh out loud more than once. But overall, it seems the behind-the-scenes stuff might have been more interesting, at least if the movie's trivia page on IMDb is to be believed.

If the use of the Republican party in the movie was intended as some kind of commentary, I missed it. An elephant is more challenging and funny to transport than a donkey. Maybe there was supposed to be a message about animal rights, but Bandit seemed to represent more of the mean-to-animals contingent than the politicians, who disappear from the movie and any dialogue as soon as Bandit fires up his replacement Trans Am.

Cameos by a slew of country singers and pro football players – including a destructive encounter with “Mean” Joe Greene that elicits Gleason's most uncomfortable and possibly funniest line of the movie** – underscore Bandit's celebrity status and probably added more excitement then than now. But ultimately, a lot of the gags fall flat and the action sputters.

Outside of the finale, the car stunts seem more subdued, and that's not due to me aging out of enjoying them. I still watch the “Fast and Furious” movies at least once, despite not being able to suspend my disbelief for most of their antics.

I had even more trouble with it in this movie. Snowman's trucker rescue recalls the camaraderie of the road demonstrated throughout the first movie, but I was too busy wondering how he rounded up such a sizable posse within a couple minutes of Justice springing his trap on the Bandit to cheer at their arrival. And after watching the sheriff's car fall apart over the course of the original, I had to scratch my head at him and Junior resuming their pursuit in a fully functioning, dry car after it falls from a drawbridge.

I didn't hate “Smokey and the Bandit II,” but I don't know that I'll ever feel inclined to watch it again with the original on my shelf. I do have some curiosity about the mostly Reynolds-less third movie, but I feel this purchase has finally convinced me I don't need to spring for the collection of all the theatrical releases and straight-to-TV or -video follow-ups with a new cast. Although at least one of those features Kathy Ireland...

* - Subtle.

** - “I knew this was going to happen when they started that busin' s---.”
Awful, but clearly intended to show what a scum bum he is and not a statement anyone was endorsing.