Next to “Convoy”, White Line Fever is hailed as one of the greatest trucker movies ever made. I suppose that is a sort of compliment. White Line Fever presents the American trucker as the everyday hero, the everyman that just tries to work hard for a living while being exploited by evil corporate magnates and hassled by the cops.

The movie has been criticized for its heroes fighting back with such violence and bloodlust that it makes the crimes of the corporate scumbags and their cronies look pale in comparison. Of course it does, but that is the whole point of revenge-action movies. The baddies are supposedly so horrible that whatever they receive in retribution is justified all in the name of justice, and all dished out by an everyman who has been pushed too far. The movie is never dull with somebody being beaten, killed or run off the road seemingly every few minutes.

It’s not that White Line Fever is bad… it is not, but it isn’t that outstanding either. There are certain elements and ideas that have popped up in recent movies such as “Black Dog” and “Breakdown” but those movies, while by no means classics, have the luxury of not coming from an era where movies such as this were a dime a dozen.

White Line Fever is a movie that has many ardent supporters. Although I have seen similar I have also seen better, but the movie has a strong cult following and its reputation has endured for decades. If the movie was reality, it would have you believe that everyone behind any kind of company is a gloating, corrupt lunatic and that the log book-doctoring, booze-drinking, road-hogging truckers that make taking your family on a sunny drive a dangerous experiment are the real heroes; that I find more frightening than any horror movie.