Fight for Your Life is a controversial 1977 Exploitation Film directed by Robert A. Endelson. It is often considered one of the most offensive and politically-incorrect films of all time.
Hate-filled redneck convict Jessie Lee Kane (William Sanderson of Blade Runner fame), accompanied by Hispanic convict Chino (Daniel Faraldo) and Chinese convict Ling (Peter Yoshida) escape from the prison-truck transporting them, steal a car from a pimp and skip the country on the road to Canada. On the way, they rob a convenience store (shooting the owner in front of his baby daughter, and then threatening said baby daughter herself at gunpoint in a particularly disturbing scene), and then shacking up in the house of an African-American family consisting of preacher and level-headed pacifist father/husband Ted Turner (Robert Judd), his slightly anti-white wife, a stern, sassy Grandma, teenage daughter Corrie and brave-spirited young son Floyd; taking them hostage.
The racial slurs fly as the convicts terrorize the family; forcing Ted to tap-dance at gunpoint, raping Corrie three times in a row, and murdering two (white) friends of the family; Karen, Corrie's friend, whom Ling molests and pushes off a cliff, and Joey, Floyd's friend, whom Ling smashes the head of with a rock. Eventually the police, led by Lt. Reilly, whom have been tracking the criminals, manage to surround the house. But the family has by now managed to turn the tables on them, and frankly would rather have their much-deserved own way with them than turn them over...
Interesting trivial note: this movie has two trailers; one intended for white audiences focusing mainly on the exploits of the criminals, and one intended for black audiences focusing mainly on the family's revenge.
Better-known films with highly similar plots, if you want to know what it's like, would include Funny Games and The Last House on the Left.
This film provides examples of:
- Cluster N Bomb: Kane hurls racial slurs (he does not limit himself to the N-word either) like confetti.
- Dirty Coward: Kane talks a big game with the gun, but once the Turners get the gun away from him, he becomes this.
- Exploitation Film: And how!
- Blaxploitation: To a degree. It is all about the degradation the Black family is subjected to by Kane and company, until the tables turn.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: Bizarrely enough, yes. For as much as a racist psychopath as he is, Kane apparently has no problem teaming up with two fellow criminals who are Asian and Latino.
- Groin Attack: By the end Ted shoots Chino in the crotch with a pistol.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: At the end Ling leaps out a window and is impaled through the chest by a large fragment of glass.
- Laser-Guided Karma: A heaping helping of it for the villains in the climax.
- Never Mess with Granny: Grandma Turner confronts Kane: "Why, you poor white trash! If it wasn't for that gun, you'd be a yellow-streaked bum!" She even grabs a hold of the gun at some point.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Kane. He goes out of his way to terrorize the Black family he takes hostage, throwing racial slurs and raping their daughter multiple times.
- Video Nasty: The only film to make it to that list on account of the racist language.
- Would Harm a Child: Floyd's friend Joey gets his head bashed in with a rock by Ling.
