Double Nickels

"Smokey" (played by actor / director / co-writer / executive producer / producer / co-editor Jack Vacek) is an amiable highway patrolman who's good buddies with one of his co-workers, Ed (actor / art director Ed Abrams). One day he pulls over a man, George (George Cole) who turns out to be a repo man. Smokey takes George up on his offer: become a repo man himself for some additional cash. Things head South when Smokey and Ed realize that the vehicles that they've been repossessing are being reported as stolen. So they're obliged to take on the brains behind the operation in order to keep from going to jail.

Made by some of the people who worked on the drive-in classic "Gone in 60 Seconds", "Double Nickels" naturally has a pretty simplistic, silly script. It's mostly one car chase after another, but that should come as no surprise. Overall it's rather crude, and *is* amateurishly acted, but when it comes to action sequences it delivers the goods fairly well. A lot of cars go very fast and sometimes crash into things; one thing that helps the proceedings is that Vacek and company do maintain a sense of humour and fun that makes this palatable if nothing special. Vacek, Abrams, and Cole are reasonably likable, as is lovely Patrice Schubert as Jordan, a nice gal whom Smokey pulls over at one point and who becomes an understanding girlfriend. Decent tunes are another asset. The unqualified highlight happens when a cop car chases a Pinto down a narrow set of stairs. It's absurd enough to be fairly memorable.

Fans of this kind of entertainment will likely find that this kills time easily enough.

Five out of 10.