Traxx

This film is very funny, although it is currently our of print. If you desire a cheesy 1980's film that puts a mercenary into the competitive cookie business...this is your film. Shadoe is hilarious! Precilla Barnes is also very good as the mayor of the town that Shadoe Stevens tries to "tame" in order to fund his cookie business. The only problem is that he can not cook! This film is classic overdone male machismo, wrapped up in cookie dough. Yes, it is predictable, but very funny nonetheless. As far as I know, this is the only film where Shadoe Stevens is the star. He became famous for doing the voice tracks and announcements for the original Hollywood Squares.

So what if it's ULTRA-80's!!! It made me laugh for at least an hour after I was through seeing it. If you like "I'm Gonna Get You Sucka" then this will be right up your alley. If only it had been successful... Oh well. Shadoe Stevens is my new hero!

Is it brilliant? The best darn parody since "Airplane"? Nah. But me and my drunken undergrad buddies thought it was funny enough to rent it more than a couple of times back in the early '90s. And I wouldn't mind another look at it, I tell you what.

It was funny enough for an evening. Better than the average sitcom anyway.

Gosh. Apparently, I need to write 10 lines. But this little movie is not really worth an additional character study, plot analysis or other academic exercises. It was fun but no more essential than this useless padding.

I worked as an atmosphere person on this film while it was shooting on the back lot in Wilmington, North Carolina. I was a drunken cowboy, a customer in the whorehouse parlor whose pocket was being picked by a scantily dressed employee, who was in fact a well brought up Southern Baptist girl who giggled nervously as I nuzzled her belly. My son Josh, an adopted Korean who was about eight at the time, was also an atmosphere person, playing one of the children in a kind of day care center in the whorehouse, genuinely startled when the door burst open because the move hadn't been announced. Now, as an insider on this project, I agree with other reviewers that this is one of the rottenest filthiest and altogether most execrable movies ever committed to film, the absolute nadir. I disagree with one reviewer's comment, however. The funniest gag is not the credit card decals on the whorehouse door. It is the scene in which Robert Davi (a competent actor, reserved guy, and stone opera fan) releases an inhuman amount of intestinal gas inside a closed vehicle while laughing hysterically, then lights a cigar, during which feckless act the car blows up. That's the funniest gag.

The production is low. The acting is bad. The cookies are horrible. But that is what makes Traxx such a great film! The plot is not overwrought and deep, but it holds its own. What you are left with is over-the-top action and campy fun. Each of the characters is unique and quotable. This film remains probably the most oft-quoted movies of all time between me and my family and friends.

There was no attempt to make this movie low budget, naturally. That is what makes the entire package worth multiple views. Unlike the trendy, big budget "under the radar" releases today that try to fit the low-budget profile (and all the while most remain overrated and under deserving), Traxx succeeds because it is the real deal. It is underrated and most deserving. Watching the main character (Traxx) almost break character and begin to laugh as the one-shot-only pyrotechnics go off around him (you cannot script that). The Guzik Brothers hit squad is so brutal and self centered, yet they do not have to demand more screen time from the viewer: you will demand it of them.

This movie is the only reason I still have my VCR hooked up.