Hands on a Hard Body (1999)

The glory of the human spirit is that it can propel the human body to feats unimagined by those with less vision. S.R. Bindler documents a 1995 promotional event in Longview, Tex., at which 24 intrepid men and women were willing to stand through rain, sun, pain, and exhaustion with at least one hand on a Nissan pickup truck, hoping to be the last person upright -- the one who wins the wheels.

The film itself is sometimes as bumpy as a panhandle dirt road, but out of the low-budget roughness and moments of Lettermanesque ain't-folks-nutty humor, sharp portraits emerge of contestants as well as of the families and friends who massage, feed, and revivify the flagging bodies. By the time Bindler tracks the winner driving off, the pain of the runners-up is our pain, and what first appeared to be two dozen Texas crazies have become individuals of stubborn dignity.

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