"Smokey And The Bandit" wasn't exactly Shakespeare, but then nobody wanted it to be. It was lowdown slapstick, but it did have a smart script with definable characters and a fun wrap-up; people came out of the theater smiling. "Hooper", an alleged tribute to the Hollywood Stuntman, provides no smiles. It also makes stuntmen look awfully lazy by involving them in nothing but badly-choreographed fight scenes and one of the most unconvincing car-jumps I've ever seen. It all looks phony, poorly-filmed almost on purpose. Burt Reynolds winks at the camera like a kid at camp, signaling to us that it's all a josh, while Sally Field (as the proverbial girlfriend who wrings her hands on the sidelines) has not a single funny line. "If you do that jump," Field tells Reynolds, "I won't be here when you get back." Smart audiences will join her. * from ****
Review of Hooper
