By At the beginning of the year, if your memory is indeed still able to go that far into the past, director Quentin Tarantino appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, promoting his (then) new film, Once upon a Time in Hollywood. Fallon asked Tarantino about his time working at Video Archives, a rental store located in Manhattan Beach, California, when he was younger.
Tarantino talked about how he would tailor his suggestions to customers because you can't just assume everyone will like the same comedy, you know? "I don't believe in go-to movies," he said. Then he changed his mind, remembering the one thing he knew he could recommend to anyone and everyone: Hands on a Hardbody.
The 1997 documentary follows a Texas competition in which contestants try to win a truck by keeping their hand on it the longest, a game which appears to be about physical stamina but, as Benny, the entertaining contest veteran who is back to win again, says, it's actually about "who can maintain their sanity the longest". Contestants are allowed breaks of five minutes every hour and 15 minutes every six hours, other than that they must stand, pouring rain or blistering sunshine, and keep one hand on the truck at all times.
"You gotta be a nut to do it!" says one of the contestants, who must be a nut because he has agreed to do it, and the group of misfits are indeed the lifeblood of the show. There's Norma Valverde, a devout Christian who spends hours devouring religious music on her tape player, and who has her whole church and congregations further afield praying that she takes home the truck.
There's also Ronald McCowan, a very amusing teenager who tries to keep his energy up by chain eating Snickers bars, which goes as well as you can imagine. Then there's the peppy Kelli Mangrum who is determined to get the car instead of having to save up for it with a low-paying job, one of so many in a film which gives a fairly miserable picture of low income Americans and how the contest feels like a Golden Ticket for them.
Hands on a Hardbody is pure human drama, like watching a stuck elevator in which small annoyances and petty rivalries are blown out of proportion because you simply cannot escape people's laughing, humming and complaining. What is more interesting though is the bonds that people form from spending 60 hours stood next to a stranger, with friendships forged in the Texas sun which make for truly moving viewing.
As the hours draw on the contestants peel off one by one, their determined words about going the distance and "just not letting go" coming back to haunt them as their legs shake and their minds bend. It is the kind of contained theatrics which would be the perfect subject for Tarantino's much rumoured tenth and final film, but really, nothing could rival the pure drama of the original.
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