Movie review: ‘Breaker! Breaker!’

FloridaGator80

Chuck Norris managed to star in one of most unusual sub-genre films with “Breaker! Breaker!” In it, he combines the 1970s CB craze with the martial arts! It’s not too far apart once you think about it, but not really a natural. “Breaker! Breaker!” is your typical B-movie of the time that would later have folks say that it should have gone “straight to video” if there had been video at the time. However, unlike other martial arts or CB-trucker movies, “Breaker! Breaker!” is a bit better than you’d imagine or remember for the tiny who saw it 45 years ago. So, check your streaming platform and get ready to remember the CB days with “Breaker! Breaker!”

‘Breaker! Breaker!’
(1977; 86 minutes; rated R; directed by Don Hulette and starring Chuck Norris, George Murdock, Terry O’Connor)

HEY, GOOD BUDDIES! THIS ONE’S BAD, BUT ALSO OK!

(NOTE: I updated this review on March 20, 2026, to note the passing of Chuck Norris.)

My previous movie review was of “Enter the Ninja” (click here for my review) and I mentioned a Chuck Norris martial arts film. Then, I caught one of Chuck’s early efforts on one of the movie networks and it blends the Citizens band (CB) radio craze of the day with the very-popular martial arts genre in cinema. I wouldn’t call “Breaker! Breaker!” very much “cinema” because of its wooden acting, but it has a little bit better acting than a bunch of similar movies.

(CLICK here … for all my reviews of movies)
(CLICK here … for a chronological list of my reviews)
(CLICK here … for all my Christmas movie reviews)
(CLICK here … for all my reviews of horror movies)
(CLICK here … for all my reviews of movies about war)

Of course, Hollywood cashed in on the popularity of CB radio in the 1970s with films such as the megahit “Smokey and the Bandit” with Burt Reynolds (click here for my review) and the less-remembered offering “Convoy” from legendary director Sam Peckinpah and starring Kris Kristofferson as the “Rubber Duck” (remember the song?) where truckers came to the rescue against a crooked sheriff. However, few films made martial arts the focus with CB as an adjunct to the main purpose of the film: martial arts fight scenes.

Just like so many bad films before and after it, “Breaker! Breaker!” has a bare-bones plot: The good guy is tough and cool; he has a relative get in trouble; the trouble comes in the form of a very bad man running a crooked town; the good guy gets involved; the good guy fails at first; then the good guy kicks ass; and finally the good guy and all the other good guys save the day!

OK, so there’s a little more to “Breaker! Breaker!” than that, but you get the idea.

The best thing about “Breaker! Breaker!” is that while it is the typical “good-guy plot,” the very bad guy has decent lines to show some actual depth of evil. In “Breaker! Breaker!,” it is George Murdock as “Judge Joshua Trimmings” and he established and runs the corrupt town of Texas City in California. Murdock’s character isn’t one-dimensional, as just about every other character finds himself or herself in “Breaker! Breaker!,” and that’s the difference between checking this one out or ignoring it when it rolls around on your TV grid.

In “Breaker! Breaker!,” Norris’ brother gets stopped and run through the wringer by the crooked cops and Murdock. Norris goes to get him out of trouble and finds a bunch of it for himself. He gets help from a woman in the town (actually, the bad guy’s daughter) and all his trucker friends come to demolish the creaky town buildings with their rigs at the end – and killing Murdock in his bed by running an truck rig through his bedroom. I’d say, “Breaker, breaker! That’s a big 10-4, good buddy!”

Now, let me take a look at some of the cast …

  • Norris plays “John David ‘J.D.’ Dawes” in this one and gives his standard performance of a somewhat stoic open friendliness for friends and either his shoe or a fist when someone goes bad on him. It is what would be a typical Norris character: rugged, honest and the toughest guy around. He doesn’t manage to elevate his character, but, then again, he really never did in other roles. I enjoy just about all Chuck’s work and I’ve reviewed him in “The Octagon” (click here for my review), “Good Guys Wear Black” (click here for my review) and, in an underrated almost cameo in a film where he’s the ostensible headliner, “Sidekicks” (click here for my review). He did not often play a “bad guy,” but did and fought and lost to Bruce Lee in “The Way of the Dragon” (click here for my review) from 1972. Although you might believe Norris was prolific in his career spanning seven decades with the first in 1968, he only notched 47 acting credits. He is most widely recognized for his long-running TV series “Walker, Texas Ranger.” Norris died in March 2026 in Hawaii at 86, just nine days after his birthday of March 10.
  • As I already noted, Murdock is good with his character in this one. It would have been easy to just be a nasty person, but Murdock manages to show depravity through emotion and that’s not easy for an actor to accomplish … especially in this kind of film. Murdock plays this one pretty much as if he was portraying a cult leader (and, which, in fact, was just what “Judge Trimmings” was to the people of the town). Only a hint of real crime and not just lunacy comes across as Murdock was overseeing a moonshining operation as well as ripping off the unwary who drove past or wandered into Texas City. Murdock had 204 acting credits after the first in 1961 and he did dozens of TV episodes including one on “Seinfeld” and one on “CHiPs” and was “God” on “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.” He died at 81 in 2012 of cancer.
  • Don Gentry plays Murdock’s main henchman, “Sgt. Strode,” and does absolutely nothing with the character. Gentry doesn’t manage to drive much emotion despite having a few more lines and screen time than others in the cast. Gentry had a brief career with this film and one other; three TV series; and one TV movie. All the credits are from 1974-1978.
  • Michael Augenstein plays Norris’ brother “Billy Dawes” and, unlike Gentry, appears to try to do something with the character. Unfortunately, he just doesn’t have the acting chops … well, much of acting anything. Also, like Gentry, Augenstein had a limited career in Hollywood, with only one other acting credit on his resume and that was for a video offering of “Macbeth” in 1981.
  • Paul Kawecki plays “Wade” and he actually offers glimmer of acting as he does the job of one of the bad guys. Kawecki manages some emotion, especially when he kills his own brother, but, like the rest of cast, it’s not much when considering this is one for the big screen. Also, like Gentry and Augenstein, Kawecki has a tiny resume in entertainment. He has three acting credits including this one and the other two are as a trader at a desk in “Wall Street” with Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen and he was a “model” in a 1968 episode of TV’s “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”

So, there you have it. A few other actors have more than passing screen time, but I’m not going to spend time basically writing about them what’s already been written about others.

I’ve reviewed to other films from an odd sub-genre in cinema: “TAG: The Assassination Game” (click here for my review) and “Gotcha!” (click here for my review). Both are films featuring the 1980s craze of college students playing a “killer” game where they “shoot” each other with toy guns while chasing each other around campus (just try that today!).

So, a sub-genre of mixing CB radio with martial arts actually shouldn’t be too surprising.

I wasn’t able to determine where “Breaker! Breaker!” ranked at the U.S. box office in 1977. The internet offers several websites with a confusing array of analytics and I couldn’t find ticket sales total for “Breaker! Breaker!” on either Box Office Mojo or The Numbers. Wiki noted it earned $15 million. Everyone remembers the No. 1 film of the year: “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope” with $195.6 million in the calendar year and $307.2 million total, according to Box Office Mojo. Here are the other films from 1977 that I’ve reviewed for my blog:

Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):

  • Norris’ scenes took 11 days to film and he was reportedly paid $5,000.
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “The film’s title refers to a CB (citizens band radio) term in which a driver is requesting to break into a conversation. Its usually followed by a numbered code indicating the channel the user wants to break in on.”
  • Norris’ birth name is Carlos Ray Norris, he was born in Oklahoma and his nickname is “Ground Chuck.”
  • Murdock’s birth name was George Risk Sawaya Jr.
  • Norris’ truck was a 1973 Kenworth K-100.
  • Click here IMDb.com’s very anemic trivia page about the film …

© Chuck Curry and A Gator in Naples,
©2023, ©2026
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without
express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner
is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that
full and clear credit is given to Chuck Curry and A Gator in Naples
with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Unknown's avatar

Published by FloridaGator80

Leave a Reply