Watch The Gumball Rally For Free

Sadly Over-hyped

Fresh and Exciting

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It's kind of hard to describe The Gumball Rally because it's one of those plot less affairs that makes absolutely no sense, but can be enjoyed for some comic moments. Michael Sarrazin heads the cast here and clearly The Gumball Rally was just a preview of things to come before both Cannonball Run movies with bigger name stars were involved.The Gumball Rally is an illegal cross country race in which various people of all kinds of backgrounds get together once a year and race across country, illegally and secretly kind of.Clearly The Gumball Rally had its thunder stolen, plagiarized as it were by The Cannonball Run films. But both of them had so much better casts and a free spirit that this one lacks.

Talk about a sub-genre being popular in the 70s, and through into the early 80s. "The Gumball Rally" is a boundlessly, cheerful and comically illicit cross-country road race from New York to Long Beach, Los Angeles. What's waiting for the winner at the finish line… pride… and a tiny gumball machine. The fruitful characters, are thoughtfully picked to participate in the race. The secret word is… Gumball. They are quite stock-like, but in this case it's the mettle and happy-go-lucky awe that makes them all rather bearable, and actually enjoyable to watch. Dialogues are arrantly sharp, and amusing in the character's exchanges. Mainly for me, it was that of the Norman Burton's hell-bent police detective, who's doing anything possible to bring to a halt the race. Burton's straight performance is rather humorous, and truly makes for some pleasurable sequences. The presentable cast; Michael Sarrazin, Tim McIntire, Raul Julia, Susan Fannery, Joanne Nail, Harvey Jason and Gary Busey are all good-willed, living it up in their parts. Since it's a one-trick pony premise, director Chuck Bail delivers on the flavorous, episodic goods (outrageously chaotic vehicle stunts and getting those engines purring) in a nippy fashion that never loses momentum, or in what it wants to be. There are sight gags aplenty. Sure some might be misfires, but the bang-up visual feast makes up for it. The cinematography is smoothly done, and the playful music score pines into the upbeat groove of the film. It wasn't as good, as I first remembered it to be (mainly the slow beginning to set-up the whole situation), but this gimmicky, light-headed farce lazily passes the time.

Back in the 1970's movies were better. Compared to the movies they are making today this seems great. Judging the movie 29 years after its release was FUN! This film is just funny! Something The "Cannonball Run" ( A Burt Reynolds Rip-off of this movie) never got right. The characters in this movie seem real! Not stereo types! The viewer is in on the fun! In this movie we get to see an illegal auto race from New York To Long Beach, California. As a viewer you never want the race to end! At the time this movie was made it was made with actors that you have seen before but can't remember where. Well that is a good thing! The reason why is that you will not figure out who will win! If you saw the movie "Rat Race" you will see the director ripped off this movie! Now is Hollywood wants to remake this I would want "Clive Owen" to have the lead. If they want to change the story around For a female co-star I would go with Reece Witherspoon! But please do cast Jude Law! Has he stared in in any movie that made $100,000,000?

Chuck Bail, a stunt performer on Steve McQueen's "Have Gun, Will Travel", contributed some memorable bits of dialogue to this script. I've lost count of the number of times I and others have repeated Raul Julia's judgment on the rear view mirror, "What's behind me is not important". Inevitably, any spectacularly ugly car we come across "looks like a jukebox". And on and on.Julia, whose participation in this film was not generally cited in obituaries, and Gary Busey were performers whose careers took off afterward.The remainder of the cast consists of moderately well known players, some still to be seen on soaps and occasionally in prime time guest shots. Normann Burton as a New York cop on the verge of a nervous breakdown and Harvey Jason as a bizarro motorcyclist stand out.As is usually the case in movies about automobile racing, lots of expert stuntwork is on display here. Scenes of pure speed, though, do not get in the way of funnymen being funny.