Stroker Ace (1983)
Directed by Hal Needham
Stroker Ace, a champion NASCAR driver, is standing at the top of his career, but is getting fed up with having to do as he's told. In between rebelling against his sponsor (a fried chicken chain)'s promotion gimmicks (like making him dress up in giant chicken suit) he spends the rest of the movie trying to bed the buxom Pembrook.
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What critics compared Stroker Ace to
He knows how to get at a $14 million NASCAR cash trove after a giant sinkhole opens beneath Charlotte's racetrack (which actually happened in 2010; the racetrack joked that in fixing it, they found Burt Reynolds' toupee from Stroker Ace, shot there).
Fun Fact: Still Smokin' and Stroker Ace were both released in 1983; the year Smokin' Aces most readily (if unfortunately) calls to mind, however, is 1993, with Reservoir Dogs still smoldering, True Romance on deck and Pulp Fiction and a host of Guy-wannabes to come.
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is Hollywood's first NASCAR comedy since Stroker Ace (1983), a much-maligned box-office flop that began Burt Reynolds' decline in popularity.
"Stroker Ace" is another in a series of essentially identical movies he has made with director Hal Needham , and although it's allegedly based on a novel, it's really based on their previous box-office hits like "Smokey and the Bandit" and " The Cannonball Run ."
It's a witless retread of the earlier, far funnier road-movie collaborations of Mr. Needham and Mr. Reynolds, especially of their two ''Smokey and the Bandit'' movies.
Bubba Smith lends his imposing humorous presence to the role of Clyde Torkle's chauffeur, but he and Beatty don't really function as an oddly matched comedy team, as Pat McCormick and Paul Williams did in "Smokey and the Bandit."
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It also inevitably begs comparison to everything from Days of Thunder to Talladega Nights to, um, Stroker Ace to, uh, The Love Bug and, sure why not, Cars and The Cannonball Run and Death Race 2000 .