Customer Reviews

Big Rig

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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!!

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.

I did not have high expectations for Big Rig, but the film was a pleasant surprise. The truckers in the film reflect on their lives on the road and on what they have learned about America. Viewers get to see averages Joes (and Janes) tell us what they have learned from their lives on the road.

One of the interviewees reflects that truck drivers are the closest thing that we have to modern-day cowboys; drivers lead transitory lives away from home and family in order to keep our economy moving. By travelling across the U.S., drivers have a chance to see the good and the bad in our society. The drivers featured in Big Rig consistently express a strong dislike for the U.S. Government and its heavy regulation of the trucking industry. One of the few female drivers speaks of the danger and sexism that she encounters on a regular basis; she says that, in spite of the challenges, she loves driving a truck.

One great aspect of the film is the beautiful cinematography. The filmmakers did a spectacular job of shooting America "from sea to shining sea." Critics often contend that the interstate highway system is a boring way to see America; the visuals in Big Rig constitute a nice counterargument. Big Rig also has a great soundtrack. The songs are by a Canadian who calls himself Buck 65; his songs are a mixture of country and hip hop; I promise that it is better than one would think.

Watching Big Rig made me think that, perhaps, one of the best ways to "find" America would be to work as a trucker for a few years. I recommend the film.

Greetings.

My father was a Michigan trucker for one of those smaller distributors later acquired for the trucks and warehouse and other assets by a much larger distributor which then whacked most of the smaller firm's people to unemployment. My father placed me behind his rig's steering wheel for a stretch of road along Lake Huron on a clear day when I was age 14, to step me through the gears of his rig, then to pull in to the next delivery stop. Interesting experience, yet when I chose a career at age 15 I chose practical electricity, and I am today a 76 years old journeyman electrician with 60 years in the trade and other education.

Attempting to view the Free! to Amazon Prime subscribers (I highly recommend Amazon Prime) film Big Rig is painful. Semi-literate men and women complaining about the state of their protective nation, the USA.

Drive it or leave it. The warming arctic employs big rig truckers, while paying triple wages (though with no unions or medical plans). Check it out.

Easy to do, as the TV show IRT displays.

Oh, and. Amazon presents an excellent selection of truckin' music CDs, which I have.

"Big wheels rollin', big wheels rollin', movin' on..." Glory days. Do we got us a convoy!

Clint Williams

Oakland, Michigan USA

We see them everyday and probably curse them just as much. But Big Rig digs deep into this American subculture and puts a human face on it. Like most of Doug Pray's films (Scratch, Surfwise, Infamy), he makes you understand what's behind the common misconceptions of truckers, so you can come to appreciate their contributions to our daily lives. Unexpectedly entertaining and enlightening at the same time. Highly recommended.

This film highlights the stories of professional truck drivers who transport everything from groceries to hospital equipment across America's highways and, in the process, support the livelihood that the rest of us maintain. Director Doug Pray pulls off an outstanding job of portraying his subjects as respectable, hard-working, and passionate individuals who are dedicated to their service and career. I love his work! He has so much passion for his characters!

As an employee for a Landstar dispatching agency, I have come to love drivers. I was looking for a video that would help me see the ins and outs of their side of the equation. This film had very little of that. If I didn't know so many drivers personally, this video would have left me with the impression that one has to have a messed up past, a severe dissatisfaction with the government, or a willingness to sleep with hookers to be a driver. As a flag-waving american who doesn't consider his past to be a total mess, this movie left me with the impression that truck driving is just not for me. The attempt was obviously to gain sympathy for drivers, to put a human side on a society that is sort of labeled as a commodity rather than people. If I didn't know better, I'd walk away thinking all drivers hate the government and have been divorced multiple times. Definitely did not like this approach.

This was an excellent documentary of the people in the trucking industry as well as the importance of that industry to the US economy. The concept an execution of the project was great. The filmmakers captured a great cross-section of truckers, whom are known to vary greatly. One of the common threads: The economy goes NOWHERE without trucks. If you bought it, a truck brought it!

It should have been stressed more that the trucking industry does not receive the respect it deserves from the general public. More and more city ordinances are going after the trucks for all of their air pollution problems, 4 wheelers don't want to share the road, filthy truckstop bathrooms/restaurants and let's be real here, please, when was the last time you saw a beautiful&friendly clerk greeting you when you come thru those truckstop doors? Smile America...they're working for YOU!!!