Breaker! Breaker! (1977)

Director: Don Hulette

Starring: Chuck Norris, George Murdock, Terry O’Connor

Truck driver searches for his brother, who has disappeared in a town run by a corrupt judge.

If you were fooled by the poster thinking this is a trucker movie, then they did a darn good job luring people to watch ‘Breaker! Breaker!’ If not for the poster, then you’re probably a Chuck Norris fan and wanted to see how it all started for him.

Yup, I’m one of those suckers who fell for that clever marketing poster. To put things into perspective, this is not a trucker movie. Oh, it is about a trucker, and there are trucks causing mayhem during the film’s final 10 minutes, but hardly enough to call it a trucker movie.

So, smooth-faced Chuck Norris stars as truck driver John Dawes, or JD. When his younger brother Billy goes on his first long haul, a road closure forces him to take a detour. When he gets to Texas City – run by corrupt Judge Trimmings – he is apprehended on false felonies.

When JD learns of this, he goes to Billy’s rescue. He encounters various corrupt characters and soon discovers “something wrong” with Texas City. Only one girl, Arlene – who claims to be the only person not caring about the town or Trimmings – doesn’t seem to be corrupt. Off course, she becomes the love interest (yawn, so predictable). This love story felt forced purely for the sake of having a love interest.

‘Breaker! Breaker!’ is slow moving and not all that interesting. The characters are silly and their actions are unnatural. The humour was also far more silly than funny, concluding this to be a stupid script in its entirety. I mean, there’s an attempt at action, an attempt at a love story, an attempt at humour, and an attempt at an interesting story – all of which fails miserably.

There are a few (note, A FEW) interesting action sequences (note, I said ‘interesting’, not good). Honestly, I actually couldn’t wait for this to finish. The film’s highlight was the final 10 minutes when the trucks ran amok. But even so, the props looked cheap, and it was all over before you can say ‘Breaker!’ The final (clichéd) hand to hand combat scene sees JD fighting Deputy Boles. But why is this the climax? Deputy Boles wasn’t the main protagonist. Trimmings was. It’s a disappointing climax. Bad. Bad sound. Bad acting. Bad directing. Bad editing.

Despite everything bad with ‘Breaker! Breaker!’, it was evident there was something much greater in store for Chuck Norris. His martial arts skills is what propelled him to super stardom. If you’re into trucking movies, much rather watch ‘Convoy’ or ‘Smokey and the Bandit’, both of which are far superior to ‘Breaker! Breaker!’.

Surprisingly, the film was a big box office success, raking in $12 million on a small $250,000 budget.

Would I watch it again? Nope.