The Last American Hero (1973)

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1. 

   jeroeno

   Watch it here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jYrVdd3xzU 6 years 5 months ago
2. 

   Siskoid

   Like White Lightning, The Last American Hero focuses on a fast, grinning driver from a "virtuous" moonshine family, and there must have been something in the water, because it came out just two weeks before Burt Reynolds' more famous flick did. It certainly has the same sense of the South bucking Federal law, at least if it wants us to take the title unironically. To make money while his daddy's in jail, a young Jeff Bridges gets into car racing where he still tries to buck the system, but may end up disappointed no matter how much talent he has. Loud, but exciting racing sequences, and Bridges' innate charm enliven this "sports movie", but it's really an American Dream story, and as any Am-Lit student will tell you, those never end particularly happily. And so facile formulae are confounded so that youth can be tamed and dispirited, no doubt a big theme in the early 70s, as Flower Power wilted and America got into its Nixonian malaise. Of course, this is loosely based on a real racer's life, so it must drive around certain posts, but the point stands, I think. Plus, nice use of Jim Croce's "I Got a Name", which was first introduced in this film. 7 months 3 weeks ago

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