Once a staple of late-night cable TV in the early 80s, DC Cab is an admirably ramshackle ensemble comedy that with a tad more directorial focus and slightly less dependence on cheap comedic cliches might have found itself in the same league with the big successes of its day—Trading Places and 48 Hours—rather than being relegated to also-ran status. The film clearly takes inspiration from tune-heavy underdog comedies of the 1970s like Car Wash (especially with the groovy synth-funk score by Giorgio Moroder) only DC Cab centers on a shabby inner-city cab company in the nation’s capital run by a half-crazed, flame-thrower wielding Vietnam vet (Max Gail).
He runs this barely functioning cab business with a bunch of entertaining but undependable ne’er do wells, played by a melting-pot cast led by the man of the moment, Rocky III baddie Mr. T, along with some fixtures on the early 80s American comedy scene: including Marsha Warfield, Bill Maher, and Paul Rodriguez. In fact, My Bodyguard breakout star Adam Baldwin plays the only sane employee of the bunch, Hockenberry, who’s a sincere do-gooder from the Deep South for whom cab driving is a life’s ambition. Gary Busey even makes a loudmouth supporting turn with his soon-to-be-legendary hillbilly-on-amphetamines schtick.
The film can’t really seem to settle on much of a plot until late in the film, where Hockenberry gets caught up in a ridiculously improbable kidnapping scheme. Although the crass jokes in the movie are fairly typically tasteless early 1980s fare (“If I wanted any more shit outta you, I’d squeeze your head!”), the untamed comedic energy here is so off the charts it’s hard not to get seduced by it all after a while. Although there are plenty of missed opportunities for social comment here—being set in DC in the shadow of the Reagan White House and its failed economic policies—yet beyond DC Cab’s silly façade, there’s still an upbeat, earnest depiction of the value of interracial solidarity and cooperation against the increasingly harsh realities of trickle-down Reaganomics. Optional.