Mother, Jugs & Speed Review

Mother, Jugs & Speed
LA law states that the first ambulance crew to an accident is entitled to the contract (worth $42.50) to take the victim to the nearest hospital Cue anarchy on the streets as saving patients takes a backseat to earning a crust for one particular crew - Mother (Cosby) and Tony (Keitel) - and their ally in dispatch, Jugs (Welch).

by William Thomas |
Published on
Release Date:

01 Jan 1976

Running Time:

95 minutes

Certificate:

PG

Original Title:

Mother, Jugs & Speed

Fast-paced, very likeable black comedy with Bill Cosby, Raquel Welch and Harvey Keitel as a loud­mouthed Los Angeles ambulance crew hustling for custom at $42.50 a casualty. Keitel is brilliantly cast as the drug-peddling cop who’s suspended and needs to scrape a few bucks. Raquel Welch revels in the sordidness of the situation and Bill Cosby, of course, takes everything in his cheerfully cynical stride. Larry Hagman, too, is wonderful as a sex-mad nerd.

There would be even more laughs here if there wasn’t the unsettling sense that the events and the mercenary nature of the emergency services isn’t entirely untrue.

A farce on wheels, with sirens, splints, and laughs admirably darker than it's PG certificate suggests. An anarchic change of pace for the man who pointed Bullitt in the right direction.
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