About

Blue Collar will screen from an imported 35mm print.

After years as an in-demand screenwriter, Paul Schrader stepped behind the camera for the first time to adapt Blue Collar, a script he co-wrote with his brother Leonard. It is the story of three autoworkers in Detroit who decide to rob their union office to pay off their debts, but quickly realise they have stumbled upon a situation more complicated and dangerous than they could have predicted.

Part black comedy and part hard drama, the film offer acerbic social commentary on the plight of the working class in America. The three leads – Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, and Yaphet Kotto – belie none of their acidic on-set rivalry in their charismatic and fraternal performances as the autoworkers in over their heads. The Schraders’ profane and profound script is a joyfully cynical depiction of greed and corruption that offers a vision of American capitalism in which nobody emerges unscathed.