Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #70062 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-02-08
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 114 minutes

Amazon.com
Paul Schrader had established his reputation as a screenwriter (The Yakuza and Taxi Driver, among others) before embarking on his directorial debut. Blue Collar is the story of three working-class guys at the Checker auto plant who run their local union office. Richard Pryor delivers a funny, passionate, seething performance in one of his rare dramatic roles as a rabble-rousing union man. Trapped by family worries and crippling back taxes, he dreams up the robbery after scoping out the joint and enlists his coworker and buddies, family man Harvey Keitel and high-living bachelor Yaphet Kotto, who are in similar financial straits. This is a strictly amateur-hour heist, and their successful getaway is the last bit of good luck in store for the trio. The robbery turns up no cash, only incriminating files, and the inept thieves are soon blackmailing the powerful union, which fights back with force, seduction, and murder. Schrader's first film has little of the polish or style he developed by American Gigolo, but his portrait of lower middle class families in 1970s Detroit, interracial relations, and male camaraderie is sharp and insightful. His attention to detail shows in every frame and adds to the edgy material, which balances the thriller plot with social commentary about corruption, labor relations, and the lure of power. Schrader's later films show more subtlety and cinematic confidence, but time hasn't dimmed the power he unleashes in this angry working class drama.

The DVD features commentary by Paul Schrader, his first such audio track, guided and prodded by critic Maitland McDonagh, who does her best to draw the director out of his long silences and launch him into his fascinating production stories. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

a sobering movie
Well, I love Schrader and his moralistic style, to begin with. But anyway, Blue Collar has held up pretty well through the years, despite the changing face of the American workplace. It's a great movie, an American classic.

Well directed and acted!
This is as real as real can get far as life on the assembly line in the Motor City went. Richard, Yaphett and Harvey along with the other actors in this movie did a superb job portraying the blue collar working men inside of the factory plants. The way corruption in the union was exposed was on point. This is definitely one of Richard Pryor's best films. It ranks in the top three in my book.

Good to nearly the last drop
I had heard good things about "Blue Collar" and the movie generally lived up to that praise. I was reminded how profane Richard Pryor was but I was also reminded that he had a special talent that his mimicers never did. I could handle it but I had to turn it down so that my wife and son couldn't hear the twelve letter words in the other room.

I liked the way the plot developed but I didn't care for the way it ended. We get the general layout through a series of scenes that show three men who work at an auto plant in Detroit. They are stressed at home financially, at work intellectually, and by their union frustratingly. One of the three gets an idea about how they could make a killing and stick it to their union at the same time. The plan backfires but an incriminating union ledger falls in their lap. They seek to cash in on the ledger.

"Blue Collar" gives a depressing look at assembly-line workers. Work is hard, pay is cheap and no one seems to understand their plight. However, I had been under the impression an auto worker's job was top of the line assembly line work. High pay and benefits are what I understand the job to be. Anyway, that isn't to say that life's not still a struggle for these guys but I felt I was asked to sympathize a bit too much with their economic circumstances. However, what left me really disappointed was the clumsy way the writer and director handled the possibilities of the union ledger. I thought a different direction on that subject could have made for a much improved movie. However, I felt that the writer and director took their characters and sacrificed our investment in them to make a political point that made for a weaker ending. I don't have to have a happy ending but I wanted something more than I got. It was fun along the way but the film ran out of gas at the end.