Six Pack

There was a genre in the late 70's and early 80's I like to call the good ol' boy genre. I touched on it a little the other day when I wrote about Take This Job And Shove It. There's some key elements that every good ol' boy movie must have. It must include fast driving, lots of beer drinking, at least one bar room brawl, and the good ol' boy's main squeeze must be sporting lots of cleavage. Oh, and it doesn't hurt if she's a bar maid either. One of these movies that seems to get overlooked is 1982's Six Pack.

Kenny Rogers makes his motion picture debut, and the only time he headlined a theatrical release, as Brewster Baker, a hard living race car driver. En route to his next race, parts are stolen from his car. He soon finds out that it's a group of six orphans, lead by Diane Lane, who have been stealing these parts for a corrupt sheriff, Barry Corbin. Seeing how good they are with cars, Brewster takes them under his wing and makes them his pit crew. Against his better judgement, Brewster begins to warm up to them.

This isn't going to win any awards, but Six Pack is a harmless and fun little movie, with the exception of a creepy side story where Rogers' rival, Weekend At Bernies' Terry Kiser, puts the moves on Lane. Rogers handles the duties of leading man with ease. The kids, which also includes Anthony Michael Hall, do a good job as well. Erin Gray has a thankless role as Rogers' love interest. Not surprisingly, this was originally intended to be a Burt Reynolds movie, but he turned it down to star in another race car movie, Stroker Ace. I think Burt might have made the wrong choice there.

Overall, Six Pack is a good time killer.

It's available on dvd.