USED CARS

Robert Zemeckis may have won an Oscar for "Forrest Gump" and directed "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and "Back to the Future" but his best film by a mile was "Used Cars", a classic comedy that Preston Sturges might have made forty years earlier. It's set almost entirely between two car lots, one facing the other and both run by two brothers, one nice, (he runs the crappy down-at-heel used car lot), and one nasty, (who runs the slick joint across the road), and both played by the great Jack Warden. When the nice one dies his employees, lead by a magnificent Kurt Russell in a career-best performance, must try to convince his brother that he's still alive to prevent him from taking over the business.

It's a brightly coloured joy from start to finish with a razor sharp script from Zemeckis and producer Bob Gale and enough black humour and speeding vehicles to satisfy a contemporary audience. As well as Russell and Warden, there's a superb supporting cast,  (Gerrit Graham is outstanding), and a beautifully sustained plot. If Zemeckis had stuck with this kind of comedy instead of the elephantine and portentous stuff he ended up doing then his reputation might have been justified.