Product Details

• Actors: Dale Sprouse, Loretta Anderson, Sr. Claude Eric Walker, Jessie Blaine, Douglas Gustafson
• Directors: Doug Pray
• Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Screen Media
• DVD Release Date: June 3, 2008
• Run Time: 95 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0014IIQCG
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #76,693 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

From acclaimed director Doug Pray comes an award winning portrait of modern America as seen through the eyes of long-haul truck drivers, the people who know this country in unimaginable ways. Big Rig is a powerful and insightful documentary that will take you on a road trip— giving you a new appreciation for the industry which drives the country.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Trucker's Review on "Big Rig.", July 29, 2008

By 

Donald W. Decoster III "Happy Trucker" (Tidewater, Virginia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Big Rig (DVD)

As a professional driver of 17 years with more than 2,000,000 miles on the road, I looked forward to this documentary with great anticipation. I must say it was not what I thought it would be and it disapointed me quite a bit. I had wanted and expected something that I could show my family and friends to help them understand my life as a professional long-haul driver over the past 17 years. The only advertisements I saw for this video were in the different professional industry journals such as, Trucker's News, and these ads implied that this documentary would let the viewer know what life on the road was really like for the over-the-road trucker. This video most decidedly does not do that. It does focus on and give an honest view of some aspects of the typical driver's daily life on the road, however; the video spends far more time interviewing a handful of drivers who discuss their personal problems and how they handle them on the road, and/or they tell the viewer how they got into the business in the first place. This video never really addresses the true hardships, such as being gone from home 320 days or more a year, the often very stressful timelines professional drivers work with, or many of the other facets of the business that regularly confront the average over-the-road driver. This documentary really narrowed the scope and range of country in which they shot their video, it was mostly in the south, and it did not portray or even really attempt to give an accurate picture of the trucker's daily life as we do our part to keep the wheels of our nation's economy rolling. I give it 3 stars only because some of the truckstop footage was really good and I am trying hard to be nice. From a trucker's perspective however, this video never comes close to meeting its intended purpose.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great look at a trucker's life!, July 18, 2008

By 

Billie Graves (Omaha, NE) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Big Rig (DVD)

As the daughter of a long haul trucker this film hit close to home. I spent most of my childhood out on the road and this is one film that got it right. It helps to abolish all those stereotypes associated with most trucker. They are a huge piece of American culture and should be looked up to for the sacrifices they make to get the loads delivered! Thanks for making this film!!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 6 days on the road . . ., November 18, 2009

By 

Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Big Rig (DVD)

While long-haul trucks may seem pretty much all the same as you drive along with them on the highway, it's probably impossible for a documentary to capture the vast variety of men and women who travel in them and deliver much of what is bought and sold in America. Nevertheless, this film does a lot to illuminate its subject, letting us get a glimpse into the daily lives of truck drivers from coast to coast, by letting them talk about what they do for a living.

The film gives the impression that truckers perceive themselves as marginalized and under-appreciated. Many also seem to feel they are the last bastion of American values in a country gone haywire. On the other hand, when a woman driver describes using a taser to defend herself against assailants at a truck stop, you realize that truckers are regularly exposed to a seamier, dangerous underside of a national distribution system that's visible to consumers only at the end point - the shelves of their favorite discount store or supermarket.

The filmmakers follow truckers over routes throughout the Eastern half of the country, with a few side trips in the West, skimming down the left coast in the closing minutes and just barely getting into California - with a Polish trucker whose enthusiasm for American life contrasts significantly with the dourer grumblings of earlier drivers whose view from the cab of their trucks is often a jaundiced one.

I liked this film, learned a lot, and will remember it for a long time as I regularly drive the interstate and join the fleets of 18-wheelers endlessly moving across the landscape in both directions.