On "DC Cab"

Yesterday I watched "DC Cab". It was one of the VHS tapes I have lying around. One reason I watched it was that I really wanted to finally see the movie that has been the subject of so many bad movie jokes, a second reason was simply to keep working down that backlog, and a third reason was that I have promised myself anew not to eat the popcorn I buy unless it is while watching a movie. I'm trying to make both the movie-watching experience and the popcorn-eating experience special, but my resolve keeps wavering.

So it was that, being very hungry and having little in the house but popcorn, I popped the movie in. I didn't know much except that it was a movie about cab drivers and that Mr. T was in it. Watching it did not offer much illumination as to what it was about. Given that it was directed and co-written by Joel Schumacher, I figured that it would at least be coherent if not definitely a solid film. I was quite surprised.

To call "DC Cab" episodic in nature would be to risk an accidentally positive association with such films as "M*A*S*H*" and "Clueless". It's a movie where things just keep happening until a conflict emerges from left field almost at the very end. While watching it, I had the impression that the first act endured for over an hour before lurching straight into the end of the third act just before the clock ran out.

That's not to say that the film holds no value. It has a very entertaining ensemble of characters (from which, allegedly, Jim Carrey was shut out), and I really could have watched them engage in a series of inconsequential scenes highlighting their colorful personalities for a long time. Apart from Mr. T, we get a younger Bill Maher, an exceptionally racist Gary Busey, the Barbarian Brothers, a guy who I thought was the cabbie from Total Recall for a long time, the rather bland Adam Baldwin and plenty more.

If you ask me, and I really doubt that you would, it's a worthwhile film to watch. They don't make movies like this anymore, not because they've lost their way, but because they're probably too risk-averse to release anything that is simultaneously as chaotic, ill-formed and low-key as "DC Cab". With no foreknowledge and no expectations, you can't help but find something in it to like, which isn't common these days.