Last week, streaming giant Netflix released a new trucking movie featuring one of Hollywood’s biggest stars — but how’d they do when it comes to a realistic portrayal of the trucking industry?
The Liam Neeson Netflix movie “The Ice Road” remains in the streaming service’s #2 slot for most watched on Tuesday after debuting on June 25.
If you haven’t gotten around to watching yet, the plot centers on three truckers tasked with hauling wellheads over melting ice roads in April to a Manitoba mine in order to rescue a group of trapped miners.
History Channel’s IRT Stars Weigh In
Here’s a Netflix produced video featuring former History Channel “Ice Road Truckers” reality stars Todd Dewey and Lisa Kelly breaking down how realistic the movie was.
While the stars were mostly supportive of the movie, Dewey pointed out that the spacing between the trucks on the ice road was “nowhere near enough.” Kelly also had a few minor bones to pick with how the truckers handled sinking into the ice.
Truckers Take To Social Media To Point Out Movie Flaws
Many members of the trucking industry were able to catch the film over the weekend and were quick to point out that there were some major continuity flaws.
The popular social media page Twisted Truckers shared a viral post pointing out that filmmakers kept swapping out trucks from shot to shot and apparently hoped that the audience wouldn’t be savvy enough to notice (those who drive trucks for a living definitely noticed).
“They roll out of the shop driving W990s. All the crash scenes they use T680s then go back to W990s. This movie was driving me crazy,” said one commenter on the post.
“They kept switching from. Back and forth from a W990 a t680 during same scene, I knew it would be stupid as hell just like almost every other truck movie or show ever made but this was really bad,” another said.
Other commenters pointed out unrealistic or inaccurate moments involving fueling and chaining up.
“And in one frame there were bare tires, the next, one set of drives AND the steers were chained,” one commenter noticed.
“They have chains on, then they’re gone going up a steep grade from a complete stop. Putting fuel in the tank with a can that would have never been able to tilt enough to get a drop out. Upright a trailer and it stops perfectly in the vertical position when in reality it would have flopped right over on the other side. Not a drop of fuel or oil spilled while it was layed over,” a user noticed.
“How about when they’re running on the ice Road less than one car length apart, don’t get me wrong I’ve never done it but watching the documentaries every time I seen it the trucks were always a quarter mile apart. Also when he pulled the container out of the side of an avalanche uphill with no snow chains on at all,” said one commenter.
A lot of drivers had issues with the recovery of flipped trucks in the movie.
“Let’s just flip these trucks back over and get back on the road lol. It’s just that easy on a sheet of ice,” one commenter joked.
“Also I wanna know how after they flipped the trucks the red one specifically landing on the driver door how Liam’s mirror wasn’t effed up when he looked back at the black truck catching up afterwards,” one person remarked.
A few truckers popped into the comment section to remind everyone that it’s just a movie: “Good lord it’s just a movie you guys all on here griping about how it isn’t accurate or how “trucks can’t do that “ did you gripe when Batman beat Superman? Movies are for fun and 99.9 % of anything coming from Hollywood these days is bull crap can’t you just enjoy the ride and leave all your know it all opinions aside long enough to enjoy something??“