Bustin' Loose

By Marshall Fine

Of all the films in which Richard Pryor was the main star in the Super70s and Awesome80s, this was one of the only ones to come close to capturing his impishly mercurial stage presence as a standup comedian--and also to aspire to coherency, perhaps because it was cowritten by Pryor and award-winning playwright Lonne Elder III. Pryor plays an ex-convict who gets strong-armed into helping a schoolteacher (Cicely Tyson) drive a busload of physically and emotionally handicapped children across the country. Though there is the kind of irascible adult-cute kid interplay you would expect, Pryor makes it work, even as he finds the heart in a ne'er-do-well who discovers a talent for caring for others. Watch for the scene in which Pryor finds himself face to face with a hooded group of Klansmen and comically finesses the situation.

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