D.C. CAB (1983)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
"D.C. Cab" is a charming fantasy wrapped up inside of a marijuana cigarette. Charm and fantasy is written all over it because not one scene, with the exception of a taxi fare that runs into a club without paying, rings true at all. Not one. And why the Mary Jane reference? Because the movie is a literal haze, a sort of leisurely-paced comical oddity where you believe all the taxi drivers (and that includes an early performance by Bill Maher as a wannabe musician) must have a toke on occasion. Oh, no, these drivers just like to eat breakfast and dinner at the same joint every day and consume the occasional beer. Yes, it is that kind of movie.
Max Gail plays Harold, the owner of the run down cab company that can't get an airport license or cool jackets for their drivers (now I've been in lots of cabs in my day so drivers wearing jackets with the cab company emblazoned on them is new to me). Springing along is the cheerful, optimistic Albert (Adam Baldwin), the son of Harold's friend who served in Vietnam, who wants to work for D.C. Cab and hopes to save the company from its stiff competition. Why Albert has an insatiable need to become a cab driver is the movie's most burning question, especially when there are better rival cab companies.
Most of the movie is organized as a series of wacky moments, some more comical than others. One cabbie (Marsha Warfield, later a regular on TV's "Night Court") has her cash taken from her cab every day, at the same exact spot, by a gun-wielding thief. Why not choose a different route, I mean, we are talking Washington, D.C. here. The most entertaining sections of the movie are when Albert insists on driving along with other cabbies, including (Gary Busey) who has haywire theories on everything from Bruce Lee ("They got him frozen in carbonite down under Chatsworth. They're gonna melt him down as soon as the economy gets better") to how blacks will rule the world since they are all enlisting in the Army. There is also Mr. T on hand as another cabbie who can't stand drug dealers with their flashy cars! We also get a scene involving a cab stuck on train tracks and, my personal favorite, how to stiff an airport fare (I do not want to give it away but it is a priceless, hilarious scene).
Joel Schumacher, who wrote and directed "D.C. Cab," then decides to throw in a kidnapping plot involving two rich kids at a convent who throw eggs at cabs. The movie stops cold during this ridiculous diversion, throwing the movie off course (though Bruce Lee's name is mentioned again rather amusingly). The movie is a little more hip when dealing with these ragtag of misfits who are practically bringing the cab company down. A little more grit balanced with humor might given the film a sharp dose of some actual reality. Instead, the movie has a realistic setting (actually shot in D.C.) that might as well take place in Oz. Adding to the fantasy element is the casting of Jill Schoelen as some sort of angelic waitress who sweeps Albert off his feet, though her role is severely limited (so is Gloria Gifford's as the dispatcher). We get too much of Tyrone (played by the late Charlie Barnett), a cabbie wearing mint hair curlers (!), who is only putting on a stereotypical act on how people expect black people to behave. I understand his point but such a character existing in D.C. in the 1980's is unbelievable. Such is the case with most of "D.C. Cab," a spirited picture with an exuberant cast complete with a few hilarious segments and a few too many that fall flat. It seems to have been written by people who had one too many tokes.
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