Blue Collar (1978) movie review. Blue Collar, Paul Schrader’s…

Blue Collar, Paul Schrader’s directorial debut, hits like a punch in the gut — a film that wears its anger on its sleeve, and its disillusionment cuts deep.

Schrader doesn’t sugarcoat: the world this trio of Rust Belt autoworkers inhabit is filthy, claustrophobic, and inhospitable. The direction and Bobby Byrne’s cinematography lean hard into that, making even the Detroit plant and union offices feel oppressive.

Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, and Yaphet Kotto are absolute dynamite together. You can feel the sweat, the laughter, and the rage all simmering under those factory lights. Schrader doesn’t just tell you the system’s broken; he makes you feel it grinding you down.

“If you’re anything else, you gotta fight for it,” Blue Collar says early on—and it never lets up on the implications. The critique of labor, capital, institutional betrayal (both by management and by unions), and even racial divisions within the working class is fearless. As the deliberately portrayed amateurish heist plot unspools, the film becomes less about a caper and more a morality play about trust, betrayal, and the illusion of solidarity.

Rough edges? Sure. Some pacing slips, a few moments of overstatement. But the anger is real, the politics still sting, and Pryor proves he was so much more than a comedian.

A bruising, essential film. It is not comfortable, and it doesn’t pretend that solutions are easy or that righteous anger gets you a clean moral victory. But in its willingness to interrogate the fault lines between workers, unions, management, and racial politics, it remains as provocative now as it must have been in 1978. A film that grabs you by the collar and doesn’t let go.

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