DVD Review: Grand Theft Auto (Tricked Out Edition)

If you remember the 1970's because you were a teenager at the time, you probably can't think of those years without wincing over at least one memory. Whether it was the way you wore your hair, the polyester suit you bought, or some similar crime against self, it really doesn't matter. The 1970's, no matter what the nostalgia merchants would have anyone think, will go down as the wince of a decade.

It wasn't only people like you and me, either. Do you think John Travolta and Debra Winger want to be reminded of Urban Cowboy? Would Ethel Merman want to be remembered for her disco album? I'd hazard a guess and say no to both of those questions.

Ron Howard is another person for whom the seventies were most likely seen as a mixed blessing. Although he finally shed the "little" Ronnie image and all the Opie associations that went along with that, it was still hard to take him seriously as an actor when you thought of Happy Days. For the man who has gone on to direct movies like A Beautiful Mind, which won an Oscar, what might be the worst memory was his directorial debut.

There is no conceivable reason for Grand Theft Auto being released on DVD, except perhaps as a lesson in humility for Ron Howard and a reminder that even good and gifted directors had to start somewhere. Even as an example of seventies mediocrity, it doesn't merit the waste of electricity used to transfer it onto digital media.

The plot, such as it is, involves Ron's character falling in love with a girl from a rich family. Girl wants to marry Ron, but her parents want her to marry other rich guy and forbid her to have anything to do with Ron. Girl steals daddy's Rolls Royce and they elope to Las Vegas to get married.

This provides the excuse for an extended car chase to pass as a movie. Providing the scant motivation for all the ensuing "action" is a $25,000 reward posted by girl's jilted rich suitor. As the lovebirds cross the dessert from California to Nevada, they gather a variety of stereotypes to chase after them: Rednecks in pickups, low-riding Hispanics, a hillbilly evangelical preacher, and of course parents and suitor.

Article Author: Richard Marcus

Richard Marcus is the author of the recently published What Will Happen In Eragon IV? and has had his work published in print and on line all over the world. The not so long-haired Canadian iconoclast writes reviews and opines on the world as he sees …

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