UptownRox Review of Stroker Ace

Stroker Ace (1983)

Stroker Ace: one of the biggest movie scumbags in recent memory

[3/10 · 31 March 2018]

I'm a pretty solid Burt Reynolds fan. I like a good, cheap redneck comedy. And I'm no saint. But what the heck was this guy's deal? I can't remember the last movie character I saw that was such an obvious scumbag, and that I was supposed to root for and laugh along with like he was one of my buddies. Maybe the book got it right, but the movie lacked any conflict in character and simply celebrated his tasteless behavior. When a driver can't handle being taken into the wall--it happens, dude-- but he takes it out on the winner by faking an injury, cause that's the only way he can steal his girl; then loses another race fair-and-square because he takes a bad outside line, so, instead of looking at himself and his losing ways, he tosses the winner through a plate glass window; then he can't start a fight like a man, so has to trick a guy into looking up, then he sucker punches him; then can't get the woman he wants because she actually has integrity, so he has to trick her into downing alcohol against her wishes like some frat boy; then when he's got her passed out in bed, he can't handle the fact he's losing a battle against someone respectable, so has to undress a completely unconscious woman, yeah, you read that right (really Burt?).... that person isn't a hero or someone I want to chum along with, that person is a loser and a scumbag.

I'm not even talking about the misogynist jokes and putdowns, that was kinda the norm of comedy then. I mean, that stuff was kinda funny for that kind of humor.

Sure, it's all for laughs and not to be taken seriously. The Nascar stuff was cool like one of the other reviewers said. But even with a stupid redneck comedy I want my hero to have a grain of integrity. Which, nah, wasn't here.