D.C. Cab (1983)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Blistering performances.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Joel Schumucher is, by a landslide, one of my favorite directors. He's directed some of my favorite films. The Lost Boys, Flatliners, Falling Down, 8MM, Phone Booth, are all of his films, and many of them are greatly filmed and carefully executed. DC Cab, unfortunately, is not a hit in my book, and I can say, in my opinion, that this is Joels worst film. It's a choppy, sloppy, and very sophomoric attempt, and not even the gold chains of Mr T himself could save this nonsense from doom. However, all is forgiven, because there weren't many good movies released in 1983, let's be honest with ourselves. A lot of the stuff that came out that year was clearly experimental, and this certainly was no exception to the rule. For DC Cab, this film stalls...A LOT! Nothing really comes together, seems like a ton of filler, but some people seem to get a few laughs out of this, even though some of the humor may be dated. I made six attempts to watch this all the way through, something I'm not used to with Schumuchers work. It's not a movie to be taken seriously, it's not for everybody, and it is an 80's comedy, so as long as you don't set your standards too high, you should be fine with it. And one thing is for sure, Mr T is NOT an actor, so don't go into this thinking "Hey, it's gotta be good, Mr T is in it!" No. Get that out of your head. It aims at a high school level, no higher, trust me on that. Pity the fool who likes this movie!

Albert comes to town with a dream of starting his own cab company but needs to motivate Harold's employees to want to make something out of themselves. It is only when Albert is kidnapped that the cabbies must decide whether or not they are loyal to Albert and his cause......When Schumacher makes good movies, he does it via the exploitation route, his best films, Falling Down, The Lost Boys, and Phone Booth were high concept thrillers, based around power, wealth, and status.When he does bad, which unfortunately is the majority of the time, they are disasters for sure, but they are unbelievably watchable, whatever you think about Batman and Robin, when you come across it, you always tend to watch it until the end.And while this tries to capture an element of goofball comedy to the proceedings, it's just too dark, too profane, and too adult to be anything more than a curioso piece of wannabe eighties exploitation.The bottom line is that this should have been a film for the family, ironically , when I saw the poster with a smiling Mr. T covering almost all of it, I thought that this would be a throwaway cash in of the man, but no, he's just a supporting character.Apart from Baldwin, the rest of the characters are highly unlikeable. We have the racist bigot, hiding the fact that he went to college, and keeps getting angry when people want to help.The textbook cab drivers from the rival firm who are a lot better and let them know it on a regular basis.And there's Gary Busey playing nothing more than a psychopathic sexually repressed Elvis wannabe.And there's a subplot involving some crooks.It's like a carry on movie made by Troma, and it's as bad as it sounds.Luckily the film vanished without a trace, because at the end of the day, its a nasty, dirty film, with nudity and swearing in the film that doesn't need to be....

Let's face it you're only watching because Mr.T is in it. This film is classic T despite the relatively low amount of gold chains. The main point of the film is to see what Mr.T can get away with wearing. Whether it's T challenging everyone to tell him he's wearing crap or genuine bad fashion sense... perhaps we'll never know.People that should have known better include: Joel Shumacher, Adam Baldwin, The Barbarian Brothers and many more.For best results get a tape of the Mission Impossible theme music.In conclusion: I pity the fool that doesn't watch D.C Cab... and to a certain extent, I pity the fool that does!

I was previleged to screen this movie with theater owners and critics a couple of months before it was actually released in 1983. I loved it! It had great characters for that era. Mr. T played his role very believably and really hammed up those classic Mr. T phrases ("Fool", etc.). The support cast was also very good. Lots of action, comedy, and a very satisfying happy ending. On the film's opening night, I couldn't wait to see it again.I was very disappointed to find that, for reasons unknown, the original ending with Irene Cara had been ommitted.WARNING- POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD!*Note- This next paragraph should be noted under "Alternate Versions" for IMDB.In the films original ending, we get to see our heroes at the White House in the evening. Irene Cara, who had taken a ride Tyrone's cab early in the movie, mentions in that scene that she will be singing at the White House, and arranges for Tyrone and his friends to observe the concert from outside. Irene Cara could be seen superimposed through the window of the White House. I think she was wearing a red dress. I just remember she looked fantastic! It sounds a little corny, but the cab gang was all there and you had that feeling of everyone living happily ever after.What we see in the released cut of the movie is, after the rescue of the children, the scene jumps to a large parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown Washington DC. The parade seems to be in honor of the cabbies. You hear the Irene Cara song as the credits roll. The End.Not bad, but that feeling of satisfaction just wasn't as good. Some others that had viewed it at that screening agreed. The movie as a whole just didn't have the same feeling without that original ending.Incidently, the White House ending was mentioned in the Washington Post movie review on the movie's opening day. I guess they didn't tell the film critic about the changes.All in all, DC Cab is a very entertaining movie and I can recommend it for those who just want to have a fun, somewhat mindless comedy movie evening. My only other complaint is that they should have edited some of the language - the only thing keeping this from a PG rating. This movie is very entertaining for children and suffers from all the profanity. I give this 7 out of 10 stars - but would give 9 for the original cut.Maybe we will see it on DVD some day with the much needed original ending!