Used Cars (1980)

[7]

Before they struck box office gold with Back to the Future, co-writers Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale offered up this wacky dark comedy about used car salesmen trying to save their run-down lot from a hostile takeover. Kurt Russell stars as the top salesman, a sweet but narcissistic man with delusional aspirations of becoming a senator. Jack Warden co-stars in dual roles, playing the two warring brothers who own the adjoining car lots. When the ‘bad’ brother causes the ‘good’ one to have a heart attack and die, Russell and his fellow salesmen (Gerrit Graham and Frank McRae) hide the body and try to carry on, business as usual. But when the deceased owner’s estranged daughter (Deborah Harmon) shows up to reconnect with her father, things get exponentially complicated — and ridiculous.

Used Cars never quite reaches verisimilitude and its characters are largely two-dimensional. Normally, those are bad things. But I still enjoyed this movie because of Zemeckis and Gale’s clever script, a lot of funny scenes, and an ebullient spirit that makes it irresistible. The comedy is wonderfully dark and raunchy — a rarity these days. I especially like how the third act opens up the scale of the film and becomes a mini-epic of sorts, as high school students race 250 used vehicles through the Arizona desert with Russell leading the charge. The supporting cast is a lot of fun, including Al Lewis (The Munsters) as a judge who fetishizes punishment, Laverne & Shirley‘s Michael McKean and David L. Lander as tech nerds, and Alfonso Arau (Romancing the Stone, Like Water for Chocolate) as a car dealer who can’t keep his hands off his own crotch. There’s also a pet dog who lives on the car lot and steals a few scenes, including one in which he pretends to be dead to help the team secure a shady sale.

Back to the Future fans will see similarities in plot mechanics with Used Cars. Zemeckis and Gale plant myriad bits of exposition throughout the first act of both films that are all paid off by the third act climax. You’ll also see Marty McFly’s brother and sister, Marc McClure and Wendie Jo Sperber, as two of the high schoolers in the third act.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis, executive produced by Steven Spielberg and John Milius.