Car Wash

Michael Schultz, 1976

This is a lightweight movie, but it's far from worthless.

The sense of post-teen high energy in dead end jobs is leavened with the understated gravitas of ex-con Lonnie. Newly Nation of Islamed Dwayne - now Abdullah - is heavy-handedly characterised until the final scene with Lonnie where they share their sense of inner turmoil that their collegues don't feel. No clumsy moralising or hokey wisdom, but instead a highly plausible and much more affecting simply acknowledgement of their common ground.

But mostly, it's a big bright daft sunshiney film, shot well so that we see the real life city going about its day around them. It's a hurried and caricatured affair, yet also somehow authentic, like finding a snapshot of childhood. And then there's Norman Whitfield's fabulous disco-soul soundtrack.

All set one one sunny Friday afternoon in urban LA, it's as cowless as you'd expect.

No cows.