Blue Collar
Director: Paul Schrader
Year Released: 1978
Rating: 3.0
Three auto workers in Detroit (Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel and Yaphet Kotto), in need of cash for their families (and their hookers) realize their union is ripping them off, so they hatch a bumbling scheme to rob them and expose their fraudulence. It's a grim, depressing but sadly true portrait of hardships of blue collar workers in the U.S. trying to make a decent living and how the system itself ends up twisting their ideals: Pryor gets offered a promotion and joins The Man, Keitel turns to the FBI and Kotto is killed. This even brought to mind a personal story: a family member once had difficulty with her one boss at her secretarial job and found her own union wouldn't stand up for her (and her shop steward was 'acquaintances' with the bosses); she was eventually dismissed. Pryor gets all the accolades for this, but Kotto's deadly seriousness had me rattled.
