So I'm watching Smoky and the Bandit, and for the first time ever it occurs to me... why is Smoky (Burt Reynolds) attracting the cops attention on the westbound phase of the trip?
If you remember, there are two "phases" of the plan to transport bootleg liquor to an Atlanta party: the westbound leg and the eastbound leg. The westbound leg doesn't take up much of the film: by 15 minutes into the 1hr 36m runtime Cletus is pulling up to the warehouse in Texarkana. This makes sense, on the drive from Georgia to Texas the semi is empty and therefore could be stopped by every police car without any risk: that means there isn't much drama. The only exciting part of the trip is when Bandit rips the Trans Am through a stop sign and attracts a sitting cop's attention, until eventually evading him so Burt can give the camera a big grin.
Why did he do that?
Cletus is presumably speeding but even if he gets pulled over, his empty truck won't attract any undue attention (the 1800 mile trip needs to be traversed in under 28 hours which averages to 64 MPH). The worry is getting caught bootlegging 400 cases of Coors, not getting a $25 ticket. The whole reason Bandit is in the TransAm is to avoid that bootlegging charge which they only get when they're eastbound (ie. the rest of the film).
Bonus east versus west: inexplicably Reddit can't figure out why "Westbound and Down" and "Eastbound and Down" are both songs featured in the film.
Yes! Never heard of a song with Westbound and Down in it. Was always Eastbound and Down... watched the movie at least a dozen times in my life and used to sing the song with friends on roadtrips when we were 18 - 20 yrs old.
100% Eastbound and Down. Westbound and Down makes no sense because of the reasons you stated.How do they not know this? For those who are as stupid as the average Reddit leftist, "Westbound and Down" plays for those first 15 minutes when they're traveling...west.
