DKosty123 The Howard brothers, Ron & Rance got together to write this film. The script is not great, but the direction is solid. What holds this film together is the crashes and the direction. Plot wise, at least it has a plot, but it gets a little wild at times.Amazing Howards direction is good enough here that for his first film it comes out OK. Ron & his girlfriend are running off to get married in spite of both their parents objections. Her family is rich, while Ron's TV mom (Marion Ross) is just against the whole thing. The theme here is the classic chase movie which has sold many tickets.For a comparison, think Smokey & the Bandit, the first one. Now if this film had the great music soundtrack as the Bandit had, it might have been held just as good. The difference here is not just Jerry Reed, though. It is the character development too. You get the feeling fairly late in the film that some of the characters including Ron & the girlfriends own are just getting developed. In the Bandit film, the characters get developed stronger and earlier in the film.As far as direction, Howard is already close to Hal Needham here. He just isn't quite there yet. Still, this film shows me enough that I am glad Howard is behind the camera as his later films prove that this launching pad effort showed his promise.

Lee Eisenberg Before Ron Howard made his most famous movies, he started with this ultra-wacky car chase story. Sam Freeman (Howard) and Paula Powers (Nancy Morgan) try to announce their marriage plans to her parents', but the latter refuse to accept it. So, Sam and Paula run away in a car. As the story progresses, the whole situation snowballs. That is, more and more people get drug in. And of course, a bunch of cars get wrecked. Much like in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", everyone drives in every direction at top speed, damn the peripheral consequences.One thing that really caught my eye was that Marion Ross starred in "Grand Theft Auto". You may remember her as Marion Cunningham on "Happy Days". I guess that you could say that Richie decided to cast his mom. Maybe it would look like this:Marion: "Now Richard, always remember to be careful behind the wheel."(Richie zooms off.) Marion: "He always took after Howard when it came to driving."***Either way, the movie's outlandish (in fact, it's done like a B-movie), but it's impossible not to like.

wishkah7 Forget Smokey and the Bandit, check out Grand Theft Auto if you want a car-chase movie in the comedy genre! This was also Ron Howard's directorial debut. And everyone knows him as Opie from The Andy Griffith Show, and Richie from Happy Days. It's about these teenagers who go joyriding in stolen cars, and they get into the most deliriously funny situations anyone could imagine in a car-chase movie!I don't care if this movie didn't get any good reviews or if it wasn't considered 'cool', but hey, after all it was Ron Howard's first movie he ever produced. The movie may have lowbrow humor, but it's still an awesome movie worth watching! I saw this movie for the first time when I was a preteen, and to this day I still find it to be outrageously funny! If you're in the mood for a serious car-chase movie, rent something like Bullitt or The French Connection. If you want to see a funny one, rent this movie! IMHO, I think it's the funniest movie of 1977!

LEE-47 I rented this out for the reason stated above, and was disappointed to find that it was nothing to do with its violent video game namesake. Quite funny though, good stunts. Mediocre plum.