Blue Collar

Director: Paul Schrader

1978 / 114min / 35mm

Schrader swings for the fences in his feature debut, starring Kotto, Richard Pryor, and Harvey Keitel as a trio of Detroit auto line workers who, tired of getting it from both ends from management and the union, decide to bust open the union piggybank, falling foul of some real bad dudes in the process. No movie would ever again get such pathos from Pryor, also inevitably funny in this, his very best fiction film performance, while Kotto brings an unusual gentleness to the role of Smokey, a hard-partying ex-con.