Product Details

• Actors: Meat Loaf, Kaki Hunter, Art Carney, Gailard Sartain, Don Cornelius
• Directors: Alan Rudolph
• Writers: Alan Rudolph, Zalman King, Big Boy Medlin, Michael Ventura
• Producers: Carolyn Pfeiffer, John Pommer, Zalman King
• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• DVD Release Date: April 15, 2003
• Run Time: 106 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00008973E
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #49,826 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Roadie" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

No Description Available.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: PG
Release Date: 15-APR-2003
Media Type: DVD

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Greatest and Funniest Road Films Every Made, March 21, 2005

By 

Bob Barr "Free Lancer" (New Orleans, LA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Roadie (DVD)

There is a lot of silly rubbish about this film scattered all over the Internet. Most of the time when I read a review of "Roadie" I wonder if the critic even bothered to see the film before they wrote about it (see above). Unlike most other critics, I have seen Roadie, and I promise--with certain reservations--that it is a very funny and very entertaining movie.

As an older man with a nervous disposition who has enough trouble sitting through many new movies once, The ultimate tribute I can give this great "on the road" rock'n'roll saga is that I watched it numerous times when it was on cable in 1981. Since then, I have watched it several dozens of times on VHS, and now that it's on DVD, I have watched it several times again. You can put a lot of mileage on this road movie. In a day when you build whole relationship with and around movies in your personal collection, that kind of stamina in a movie is critical.

The film has a rock'n'roll backdrop--a backdrop we rarely see from the workingman's eye the way we do here. There are no star turns in the film, at least none in the late 1970's early 1980's tradition. Rock is shown as hard work, and generally the product of blue collar hands (a view I agree with). The movie gives us what amounts to real-world views of several 70's favorites (Meatloaf, Alice Cooper, Blondie, etc.).

The movie has a great premise, the howling self-reliant "Everything Works If You Let It" theme. It also enjoys a background soundtrack that fires on all twelve cylinders. But what keeps me watching the film is that it is really funny in an honest, straight-forward way that we have enjoyed far too seldom since Hollywood started grinding out its cookie-cutter "farces" in the wake of "Airplane." The dual surprises of the film are the really solid performances put in by Alice Cooper and Meatloaf in their respective roles as rock star and roadie. I am unqualified in my admiration of this movie, but I will tightly qualify the people to whom I would suggest the film. This is a "cult" movie in the most real sense of the word and anyone who is made nervous by rock music, farce that is outside of the "Scary Movie"/"Naked Gun" mainstream, or three-hundred pound leading men (Meatloaf) should avoid this movie at all costs. Also, there is a certain good ol' boy mentality at work here that will not play for some parts of the audience. But to the core audience of the film, these are not qualifications, they are recommendations. The thing I am saddest about is that the movie's soundtrack is no longer available. The soundtrack was worth having simply for the long and messy "Brainlock" which plays during one of the few really funny car chases in the history of film.

Of course Meatloaf is the bomb, and you want to believe in the reality of his character, the astoundingly competent Travis W. Redfish. Sadly, there is no Redfish in the real world, but you'll wish there was, and there probably should be.

Art Carney plays Daddy Redfish, and steals every scene in which he appears. Alice Cooper plays himself (as always) and is great. In fact, all the walk-ons and cameos are amazing.

But the amazing presence in the film is Kaki Hunter's portrayal of Lola Bouillabaisse. The Lola character is a train wreck, a disaster area, a four alarm fire. She is our worst nightmare on a blind date, but the screenplay needs her to be that disaster. If Lola had been played by a different kind of female, or had she been played as an attractive girl, the part, and probably the film would have been ruined. Hunter actually holds her own against her mighty co-stars in the film. She is amazing.

Note: a movie that is equally funny and from the same time period, and sharing roughly the same theme is Roger Corman's "Rock and Roll High School."

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A shining star in my childhood., February 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Roadie [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I saw this movie in the theater when it first came out. Yeah, it's cheap, yeah, it's cheesy...but it's a piece of real Americana. Meat Loaf is a true rock 'n roll hero, going from rags to riches to rags, and now to riches again. He never did get enough credit for his movies, but I think he's terriffic. It may not be Oscar material, but as a cult classic, this is up there with Rocky Horror and Easy Rider.

19 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "Everything works if you let it.", May 10, 2003

By 

Sheri Richardson (Formerly San Jose, CA US, now in the Wilds of OR US) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Roadie (DVD)

Whoa-boy. ROADIE isn't a five-star flick by any stretch of the imagination (save that of starry-eyed fan-atics, who're no doubt clicking No with some vehemence right about now). Every one of the three stars are worthy, however, and I snapped up this DVD with all haste because the film IS a campy, rollicking, fun little tale. Meat Loaf is a charmer as Travis W. Redfish, cuddly and sweet, inventive and wise, a memorable character in even his head-butting, brain-locking, ox-like other side. Kaki Hunter is less memorable as Lola Bouilliabase, though often just as sweetly naive as anyone who's had a brush with fan obsession (y'all CAN click Yes later on and change your vote, if you didn't know). Completing the Redfish clan, Art Carney is a hoot and Rhonda Bates purely delightful. Watch for Kurkwood Smith in a bit part.

A no-frills DVD package. The feature cleaned up nicely, but the original trailer shows wear. The Dolby 5.1 audio was a surprise, though, and plays well front and back.

ROADIE is a guilty pleasure, but such camp was fun sharing with unsuspecting friends -- we laughed 'til we cried. Chair dancing, the distinctive rattle of a beer truck, narcs snorting Tide. Some odd remembrances, too, of the brouhaha over cancelling concerts for energy conservation, often believed an excuse for censorship. Oddly enough, there's little or no swearing in ROADIE; Lola's quest for deflowering and a little substance abuse (and perhaps the close-up of Alice Cooper's codpiece) earned the PG rating.

"Everything works if you let it," a worthy sentiment.