ThiefHott Too much of everything

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

bkoganbing Mother, Jugs & Speed concerns a rivalry between two ambulance companies and their cutthroat efforts to muscle the other out of business. Allen Garfield's company the F&B Ambulance Corporation seems to be losing out. Then again with some of the help he's got do we wonder why.For those who are used to seeing Bill Cosby as lovable Cliff Huxtable you're in for quite a change. Cosby is almost stepping into Richard Pryor territory as the cynical and flippant Mother, a nickname no doubt abbreviated from something else.No doubt who Jugs is. Raquel Welch plays Garfield's secretary who wants to go out in the field as a paramedic. Garfield being the chauvinist that he is just won't go for it. Later on however Raquel proves her worth and her being a female paramedic helps Garfield in a crisis moment.Speed is a young Harvey Keitel who is a policeman facing pending charges. He needs an income and police training gives him a leg up in the hiring department.Let's just say that Garfield's company cuts a lot of corners, doesn't follow a lot of rules. They've even got a working agreement with an ambulance chasing shyster played by Severn Darden. This man is literally chasing the ambulances for clients. Biggest rule breaker is Cosby. You can't conceive of Cliff Huxtable doing what he does.If your sense of humor tends to black comedy Mother, Jugs & Speed is your kind of film. It could use a remake, I could see this as a Brangelina project myself.

Robert D. Ruplenas This had been, years ago, one of my favorites, but I hadn't had a chance to see it for many years until it cropped up on one of the cable movie channels recently. As a comedy, it certainly is never going to rank up there with Philadelphia Story or Young Frankenstein, but it is still worth seeing. It is definitely, as has been mentioned in this space, a product of its day, providing a very cynical commentary on civic institutions. It often appears a tad dated. However, as has been pointed out, it is probably the best movie that Bill Cosby ("Mother") - with his uncanny ability to pick lousy scripts - ever made, and he shines in it. It is one of Harvey Keitel's ("Speed") earliest movies, and we see here that his choice of making slightly off-the-wall movies was in evidence early. The fine character actor Allen Garfield puts in a fine performance as Harvey Fishbine, and it's great to see the late Larry Hagman in a well-played black sheep role. I wish I could say that we can see some sign of talent from Raquel Welch ("Jugs", natch), but honesty prevents me. As others have noted, the movie is indeed episodic, but a lot of those episodes are wonderfully done, my favorite being the attempt to bring the obscenely obese woman down the stairs on the gurney.

MARIO GAUCI To the 1970s, nothing was sacred – so, we had a string of black comedies/satires about army surgeons (M.A.S.H. [1970]) or the goings-on at a big-city hospital (THE HOSPITAL [1971]) and, in this film’s case, ambulance-drivers. However, another thing these films had in common is that, amid the jokes, there was something serious being said – and things often took an unexpected tragic turn (as in the scene here where a call to a gun-toting junkie sees a young hospital attendant being blown away when he tries to reason with her!); another is the one in which a woman in labor, denied access to a hospital’s facilities due to the proverbial red tape, delivers her baby inside the ambulance and dies because the “rig” is ill-equipped to deal with massive haemorrhaging! The men (and women) themselves are depicted as having a detached, even flippant, attitude to their sensitive profession – but we’re told that this is needed if one is to keep his sanity; still, there are those who overstep the line of decency (one attendant allows his green partner to drive the ambulance, when it had previously been his sole prerogative, so as to be alone with the unconscious and good-looking patient!). Other gags, however, are more typical: for instance, the scene where they have difficulty transporting a large black woman down a flight of stairs – which predictably ends with her slipping out of their grasp and scurrying down the street on a stretcher, miraculously dodging the oncoming traffic – brought tears to my eyes. A topical subplot, then, involves the rivalry between ambulance companies whose members would go to extreme lengths to intercept or otherwise stall their opponents – the issue is ultimately resolved in court by suggesting a merger between the two.Though the film is somewhat uneven, it’s well served by the cast (incidentally, several films from this era opted to use monikers in connection with their protagonists for a title, such as the recently-viewed road movie DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY [1974]): Bill Cosby (as “Mother”, a seasoned driver everyone looks up to); Raquel Welch (“Jugs”, the secretary who wishes to be an ambulance driver and takes night school to acquire the requisite training – her first unofficial job proves memorable as a police car gallantly offers to escort her but, having no address, leads them on a wild goose chase until a colleague she unwittingly absconded with improvises a patient’s get-up!); the latter, then, is Harvey Keitel (a former cop suspended for drug-dealing, which earns him the nickname “Speed” – at first glance, the Method actor seems out of his element here but wisely plays it straight most of the time); Allen Garfield shines as the loud-mouth yet flustered director; and equally effective is Larry Hagman, naturally playing the biggest scumbag of the lot (the afore-mentioned lecherous driver who even gambles as to how many lives are lost per day – which causes Cosby to physically assault him when he wants to add Bruce Davison, the attendant who fell in the line of duty, to the list) and who, during the climax, suddenly reappears at his former workplace armed with a gun and making demands (having gone berserk in the interim)…only to be pinned down with a bullet fired by an over-eager cop.

gin-22 I AM APPALLED AT THE LANGUAGE IN THIS 70'S MOVIE. I DIDN'T THINK IT WAS ALLOWED THEN AND Bill Cosby??Mr. goody 2 shoes??..Hmmm Fox movies are mostly all filled with X rated language and some nudity in daytime too. They are not HBO.. How do they get by with it?.I don't have enough lines for my statement I am told so ..I love the movies. I love the Old movies where Clark Gable said no more than DAMN--he started it all. I am not stupid..I get the message in words other than 4 letter ones. I couldn't take youth to most of the movies today and NO children. I don't care for cartoon or animated movies for full feature movies. I do appreciate good FAMILY comedy's. Gin