DVD Take This Job and Shove It

There are, of course, plenty of dated hillbilly blue collar sterotypes throughout the film (monster truck racing, junkyard backyards, trashed-out clunker cars, honky-tonk cry-in-your-beer country music, pointless bar fights, lady mud wrestling, and beer-swilling galore), but there are also more dramatic social comments on display.

The basic plot revolves around a chain of breweries being bought out by a corporation. Our hero, Frank Macklin (Robert Hays), returns to his hometown as the corporate hatchet man, assigned to make the corproation's newest acquisition more profitable. To do this, he must stand up to his old drinkin' buddies who work at the brewery, who don't understand why he's changed, or that "getting out" made him so different from the good 'ol boy of years past.

I liked Art Carney as the brewery owner, and Eddie Albert as the inconsiderate and bullying corporate boss. While both are more famous for their comedic roles, they do very well with the more dramatic material offered here. In fact, the whole cast is just fine, but they were saddled with hillbilly comedy that doesn't seem to fit with the themes of the blue collar worker facing a changing world, and the erosion of a rural lifetime of experience in the name of progress and profit.

There are three scenes that are just excellent; in one, a blue collar man realizes over breakfast that he will forever be tied down and kept from his dreams by his wife and children. In the second, an aged brewery worker admits that he can't read. In the third, Macklin seeks out his two friends, and finds them drinking the day away. Sadly, these scenes are not typical of the film as a whole, although there are good scenes sprinkled throughout.

The classic honky-tonk cry-in-your-beer country music is excellet for it's genre, although I suppose many today may find it dated, as it is clearly pre-Garth Brooks. Lacy J. Dalton and David Allen Coe both appear in the film as the owners of the local honky-tonk, and Johnny Paycheck (who made Coe's song a blue collar standard), cameos, as does country legend Charlie Rich.

I really wanted to like this movie, but it was ultimately only mildly enjoyable. The sad thing is that the movie had everything going for it; characters, cast, social setting, music, and more. It made me mourn for the obvious lack of vision that put the focus on blue collar hillbilly comdeic antics, instead of the social commentary of the blue collar code of honor versus the evils of progress and automation. The social message would have been a far better focus, and would have made the film far more memorable. Instead, we must sit through a good 'ol boy social comedy; a mixed metaphor, and a tepid, lukewarm blue collar comedy.

The end result is a film that wanted (and deserved) to be something more, but missed its chance.