He's mad, he's bad, and he's Bustin' Loose!
It's The African Queen meets Richard Pryor in this schmaltzy and salty attempt by Pryor to appeal to the family crowd. Pryor plays Joe Braxton, an inept burglar whose parole officer Donald (Robert Christian) wants to help out. Knowing that Joe is an excellent mechanic, he refers him to Vivian Perry (Cicely Tyson), the director of a school for emotionally disturbed children. The school is about to close for lack of funds, and Vivian wants to flee Philadelphia with eight of her charges and get to a farm in Washington State where the children can grow up in the fresh air and away from the urban environment. Joe is enlisted to drive the bus, which continually breaks down en route, permitting Joe plenty of time to interact with the kids -- taking them fishing, teaching them strip poker, and convincing a Vietnamese girl not to sell her body. The prim and proper Vivian holds up her nose at the vulgar and sloppy Joe, so it is inevitable that at journey's end the two will find true romance.


Bustin' Loose is a film released by Universal Pictures in 1981 starring Richard Pryor as an ex-con who gets a second chance after violating his probation.[1] School teacher Vivian Perry (played by Cicely Tyson) hires him to repair and drive a bus for a group of special needs children from Philadelphia to a farm in Washington state. Pryor also produced the film. Roberta Flack wrote and performed music for the movie. Paul Mooney has a small role. It was during shooting for the film in the summer of 1980 that Pryor's infamous freebasing incident occurred.


Release Date: May 22, 1981


Distrib: Universal


Boxoffice: $31,261,269 2013: $90,522,700