Phil Hubbs In the middle of the 'Cannonball Run' franchise (between 1 and 2), after 'Hooper', and towards the end of the 'Smokey and the Bandit' franchise (before the third), Needham and Reynolds teamed up again with this effort. Easily the weirdest movie title I've come across for some time, it sounds like a porn flick, funny thing is its actually the main characters name. So the fact this is a Hal Needham movie, you can guess its gonna be about fast cars. Yep, fast cars, Burt Reynolds, some blonde eye candy and crashes, business as usual. This time Reynolds is actually a genuine race car driver on the NASCAR circuit...instead of the regular dashing cowboy. But this being a Reynolds character, this race car driver is of course arrogant, flashy and carefree of virtually everything around him, your basic narcissistic Reynolds character. Sounds good huh, well let me ice your balls down a tad. So Ace loses his sponsor by generally being an assh*le, so he has to find another. Along comes Torkel (Ned Beatty) who runs a fast food chicken franchise offering Ace a deal, did I forget to mention Torkel's director of marketing and public relations is the blonde bombshell Loni Anderson? Well that pretty much explains why Ace accepts the deal without reading sh*t. He then spends the entire movie (along with his mechanic Jim Nabors) trying to get out of this bad deal which sees him opening fast food joints and dressing up in a chicken suit.Yes that is in fact the whole plot in a nutshell, and yes you're right, it is extremely thin on the ground. This really does come across as a lame attempt to squeeze another fast car flick out of Reynolds by either Needham or Warner Bros. I mean seriously, the aim of the movie is for Ace and co the try and get fired by Torkel, so they don't have to do the stupid things they agreed to do by the contract. At times this does include some racing which is filmed at the famous locations of...Charlotte Motor Speedway, Talladega Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway. Now this might sound impressive but it isn't really as much of what we see is stock footage (clearly), and the sequences filmed for the movie are obviously done so in front of sets and small crowds.The racing segments are too damn obvious, clearly racing at a slow speed and clearly not in any real danger of anything despite what the plot wants you to think. Sure Reynolds does appear to be behind the wheel of a real moving car as we've seen in his other car flicks, but there is zero tension or thrills here, nothing to engage you at all. To top that you don't really see much racing either, a few minutes of car footage, some refueling, some wheel spins, some cars grouping bumper to bumper (at slow speeds), that's it. Its then a quick cut to the finish where Reynolds generally wins if he hasn't been beaten by his incredibly clichéd young, good looking, blonde, male rival. Every racing flick protagonist has to have an arch rival antagonist who's usually blonde and younger, or the same age.When Ace isn't racing he's doing these promotions for Torkel's chicken franchise. Obviously these things aren't suppose to be genuinely funny or of high quality, they are suppose to be hokey and embarrassing for Ace, but its embarrassing to watch! There is literately nothing remotely interesting to see in these scenes, its not funny, its not clever, Loni Anderson in skimpy attire doesn't make it any better (well...) and Jim Nabors ISN'T funny dagnabbit!! At the same time Beatty as Torkel is a quite disgustingly stereotypical southern hick type who really made me not want to visit the American south. His chauffeur is played by Bubba Smith...but I don't know why because he does nothing accept lift a car up when a jack breaks. That's the sole reason why they cast the guy, for that one visual strength gag, good grief!Yeah so spoiler alert (who cares!), in the end they manage to trick their way out of Torkel's dastardly contract, with the help of Feeny (Anderson) who of course falls for Ace during the run time. Did anyone really NOT see Loni Anderson's character failing to fall for Reynolds slimy charms? You know what's gonna happen in this movie from watching the first five minutes, and no I can't overlook that. Thing is, what Ace and co do to break the contract, isn't that deception and kinda illegal? pretty sure you can't pretend to be a big company and pretend to offer to buy someone out.Yeah so if you like Needham's rollicking stunt flicks then look elsewhere, there is none of that here. This is a weak entry and offers no excitement at all from either the racing or the characters. The only plus points I can think of, that some folks might like here, is the historic car porn on display and the casting of various famous NASCAR drivers (none of whom I have any clue about).3.5/10

Michael_Elliott Stroker Ace (1983) 1/2 (out of 4) I must admit that when people say Burt Reynolds I gladly call myself a fan since I love DELIVERANCE and enjoy both THE LONGEST YARD and SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT. So far I've stayed away from his 80s output but decided to tackle my first one with this turkey and it's rather sad if you really think about how bad this thing is. In the film Reynolds plays Stroker Ace, a hot-shot Nascar driver who signs a contract with a chicken king (Ned Beatty) who soon has the star on the road making a fool of himself. With the help of his mechanic (Jim Nabors) and another associate (Loni Anderson), Ace must try and find a way to get fired and released from the contract. Earlier I said it was sad to watch something like this considering some of the great things Reynolds had done in his career so it's rather stupid of me to highly recommend this film due to how incredibly bad it is. I really wasn't expecting too much but it's rather shocking to see how unfunny this comedy is and the only reason it avoids a BOMB rating from me is simply because it remains entertaining simply so you can see how much worse it's going to get. The movie has no plot to think of and what little there is is just downright stupid. Do we really believe someone would sign this contract without reading it? The movie contains one bad joke after another and we get at least four with Reynolds looking in the mirror to comment on how good his hair looks. I honestly can't say he gives a bad performance because he plays that same Good Ol' Boy that he made a career out of. He's certainly going through the motions but he comes off looking as if he thinks he's doing a great job. Nabors is slightly charming in a few scenes but Beatty comes off pretty bad throughout. Anderson's entire character seems like something from another movie and the supporting cast includes various Nascar drivers, Bubba Smith and even Elvira pops up in perhaps the best gag of the film. I think the scariest thing is that this movie apparently did pretty well at the box office and this wasn't the film that would eventually kill Reynolds career. I plan on going through more of his output from this decade and I really hope nothing is worse than this here. Fingers crossed.

plonty_2000 I love old Burt Reynolds movies. They're funnier and better than every other movie combined. They might as well have stopped making movies after "Cannonball Run 2", but I guess how could they have known that there weren't going to be any more good ones? Man this movie's good. Burt Reynolds has to dress up like a chicken and drive around in a racecar a lot, and the luxuriant Loni Anderson is on hand, looking extremely hot in an eightiesly way. Burt and Loni, those were the days! I used to have this magazine that had Loni Anderson in it advertising for a vaccuum cleaner. I sure loved that advertisement! Plus there's this one part in the movie where the audience at the racetrack is upset at something Stroker Ace (Burty R.) is doing, and it shows one guy in the audience bending over and sticking his finger up his butt to display his disappointment! I laughed so hard I almost passed away into the night! If you can find this movie, rent it! And then never watch another movie again, because I tell you right now: there's no point.

grahamsj3 This is a hilarious film. Burt Reynolds is a NASCAR star who signs a sponsorship contract with Ned Beatty's Chicken Pit restaurants. The contract has all sorts of humiliating clauses in it, such as forcing Burt to wear a chicken suit during the race! Jim Nabors is his (not quite convincing) chief mechanic. Loni Anderson (oh, yeah!) is assigned by Beatty to keep Reynolds honest and strictly adhering to the contract. This is a funny film in which Burt proves that he ain't too proud. I like it!