Customer Reviews

The Gumball Rally / Cannonball Run 2

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've been waiting for years for this movie to come out on DVD. I first saw "The Gumball Rally" at the drive-in back in the 1970s, and it is responsible for spawning my lifelong love affair with the awesome Shelby Cobra. For car nuts like me, this is an enjoyable movie which can be watched over and over. The only disappointment is the original monaural soundtrack -- what a thrill it would've been to hear the 427 Cobra and Ferrari "Daytona" at full voice in Dolby 5.1 DTS. (sigh)

It started with, "A MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD", then other movies followed, "THE GUMBALL RALLY` `THE CANNONBALL RUN 1 & 2`, and, `Rat Race`, well they all had one thing in common a motorcade of laughs the match up of Burt Reynolds and Dom Deluise in the Cannonball movies is nothing less than side splitting genius.

If you like The Gumball Rally, then you'll love the dvd quality of this release (2008). It looks better than I've ever seen it. Unfortunately, no extras, accept the trailer.

Of the "let's break the law and have some fun while we do it" genre, this is one of the best. The writing, the acting and the production was witty, funny, and still holds up nearly 30 years later.

So where, oh where, oh WHERE, is the DVD? Another reviewer said it for all of us when he quoted Raul Julia's character-defining line from the early part of the film: "What is behind me...is not important." And so it goes with VHS...over, behind us, end of story...Bring ON the DVD!

Customers are standing by...

This is my favourite film of all time - no contest! I've watched it more times than I can remember as it is funny, action packed and with excellent characters. I must have been about 12 years old when I first watched it (I remember missing the very beginning because I had to go to the toilet and my mum told me what had happened and she said 'some man has just jumped into a swimming pool shouting "Gumball!"'). I am now 36 years old and there was so much that as a young kid I didn't appreciate that I now do and so the film just keeps getting better. An absolute classic...

Great movie but I REALLY want it in DVD.

I refuse to buy the tape, I want the DVD. As Raul Julia says, "What's behind me is not important" Well guys VHS is behind me...

When it comes I will buy it!

This movie plays into the fantasies of everyone who has ever wanted to, just for a little while, chuck their respect for driving laws and do something that's a little bit crazy. Made in 1976, just a couple of years after Congress lowered the national speed limit to 55 mph, this movie was a razzberry in Congress's face and a paean to the dreams of all drivers chafing under Federal restriction of their need to speed.

Out of the blue, you get a phone call or receive a telegram with just one word: "GUMBALL!" You then have 72 hours to show up at the pre-race dinner, your 'registration' as an entrant in a race with no prizes and no sanctions, that does not officially exist.

Doesn't matter who you are. What the race's organizer (Michael Sarazin) looks for is a certain spirit, summed up by his arch-rival's (Tim McIntire) after-dinner toast: "Here's to internal combustion, the wind in your face - and to hell with the 55 mile an hour speed limit!"

The rules: There are no rules. Just drive from New York to L.A. as fast as you can.

Vehicles: whatever you want to drive. A Ferrari (with the Lothario lead driver of the Ferrari Racing Team as your co-driver), a 250CC Suzuki motorcycle (if you have a certain joie de vivre and a touch of masochism), a '55 Mercedes Gullwing convertible (suitable for declaiming speeches from Henry V while swilling brandy at 2 o'clock in the morning), a Porches 911 (just made for highway flirtations), a Rolls-Royce (that you don't even own), it doesn't matter. Just drive from New York to L.A. as fast as you can.

Tactics: whatever you think you can get away with, from turning a panel truck into a rolling gas tank, to disguising yourselves as cops with the appropriate uniforms and car insignia for the states you'll transit, to driving down a dry riverbed that happens to be going your way. Just drive from New York to L.A. as fast as you can.

Of course, it isn't purely for the sport of the thing. There is an LAPD detective named Roscoe, who has been after Bannon and Smith (the organizer and his rival) since they were rich kids racing hot rods in L.A. Roscoe is about to be mandatorily retired, and before he goes he is determined to nail the Gumballers as his last hurrah. He's just another hazard of the game, like bunkers, roughs and casual water on the golf course - but much more fun to frustrate. As he's not above pulling some dirty tricks of his own, this adds spice to the race.

Not every entrant will finish, of course, and only one team can win; but sometimes it's enough to have participated in such a campaign as The Gumball Rally portrays. This little movie is far superior to the big-budget Cannonball Run pictures it inspired, simply because it shows ordinary people doing an extraordinary (if slightly insane) thing.

Just drive from New York to L.A. as fast as you can. It makes all of us hope that we'd have the guts to respond if we ever did get that phone call or telegram with that single little word:

"GUMBALL!"

Won't win any Oscars, but for the enthusiast it's an inspiration and is the closest thing we currently have to a video documentary of the real "Cannonball" races of the '70s. For the real thing, read the recently published "Cannonball" book by Brock Yates. Now if they would only release it on DVD. I've watched it so many times I've worn out my VHS copy.