Synopsis
When the owner of a struggling used car lot is killed, it's up to the lot's hot-shot salesman to save the property from falling into the hands of the owner's ruthless brother and used-car rival.
Your Movie Library
Cast
- Kurt RussellRudy Russo
- Jack WardenRoy L. Fuchs / Luke Fuchs
- Gerrit GrahamJeff
- Frank McRaeJim the Mechanic
- Deborah HarmonBarbara Fuchs
- Joe FlahertySam Slaton
- David L. LanderFreddie Paris
- Michael McKeanEddie Winslow
- Michael TalbottMickey
- Harry NorthupCarmine
Recommendations
- 100
The A.V. Club
Savagely funny...taken as a rancid, festering slice of Americana, it seems more potent than ever. - 90
Chicago Reader
For once a comedy in the Animal House school that knows what it's was about: the vulgarity of the gags matches the vulgarity of the subject, and this 1980 film becomes a fierce, cathartically funny celebration of the low, the cheap, the venal—in short, America. Most of the time, I didn't know whether to laugh or shudder, and I ended up doing a lot of both. It was Steve Martin who said, “Comedy isn't pretty,” but it's Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, the writer-directors here, who prove it; this is the Dawn of the Dead of slapstick. - 80
The New York Times
A foul-mouthed, bumpercrunching farce that is often funnier in theory than in fact but, even so, is a movie that has more laughs in it than any film of the summer except "Airplane!" It wipes out "The Blues Brothers," "Caddyshack," "Up the Academy," "Where the Buffalo Roam" and just about every other recent comedy aimed, I assume, at an otherwise television-hooked public. - 80
Time Out London
With their unerring eye for potential, the distributors didn't release this hilarious black comedy to cinemas in Britain. Zemeckis subsequently went on to make Romancing the Stone, Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and loadsa money. Infinitely more caustic than these blockbusters, Used Cars runs on a contemporary screwball motor with a slapstick chassis - 75
TV Guide Magazine
Before director-writer Bob Zemeckis found success with blockbuster hits ROMANCING THE STONE and BACK TO THE FUTURE, he directed this raunchy, hysterically funny comedy. Kurt Russell turns in a brilliant performance. - 50
Chicago Sun-Times
There are so many different characters and story lines in the movie that it's hard to keep everything straight, and harder still to care. - 50
Washington Post
For a terrible movie, Used Cars certainly has its moments. Anyone braving the sleezy ad campaign will be treated to some wonderfully funny gibes at a larger-than-life target: the used-car-industry. The question is, do a few moments of satire justify an hour and a half of naked ladies, car stunts and chase scenes? That's what most of this movie consists of. [11 July 1980, p.27] - 40
Washington Post
Used Cars, a mean, spirited farce about cutthroat rivalry between ruthless used-car salesmen somewhere in the Southwest, recalls the worst tendencies of "Ace in the Hole" crossed with the worst tendencies of "One, Two, Three." It's assiduously nasty and hard-driving too, a double-duty excess. Director/co-writer Robert Zemeckis has undeniable energy and flair, but it's being misspent on pretexts and situations that seem inexcusably gratuitous and snide.
