In his Film Comment article on Kaplan and others (“Four Auteurs in Search of an Audience”), Dave Kehr describes the films of Jonathan Kaplan: “All of his films project an obvious resourcefulness and dedication, and in at least two cases (Truck Turner and White Line Fever) he's created some of the finest work in a particular genre.... He has a bright, polished style, rooted in a familiarity with past American films....
“With Truck Turner, an action vehicle for Isaac Hayes produced by American-International, Kaplan's career takes a more personal turn. The Kaplan hero makes his debut in the form of the title chracter, a professional gunman who earns his living as a ‘skip-tracer,' tracking down criminals who default on their bail bonds. By killing one of his henchmen (in a very well-designed chase), Truck calls down the wrath of a local crime syndicate head (Yaphet Kotto) and is soon beset by a mob of hit men, domestic and imported. Truck's situation - one man against a faceless organization - parallels that of the hero of Kaplan's subsequent film, White Line Fever (Jan-Michael Vincent), an independent trucker trying to fight off a take-over by a shipping syndicate. Kaplan presents both men as sturdy proles who value their professional pride and personal independence above all, and are moved to action when those values are threatened.
“At first, Kaplan might seem to be making a Hawksian statement: Turner and Vincent both belong to tightly defined groups (Vincent has his family and a few close friends, Turner's world is restricted to his shoplifting girlfriend and two business associates); both remain essentially loners, drawing much of their emotional satisfaction from their work. But Kaplan rearranges the Hawksian ethic by insisting on a social background for the action. Vincent and Turner are both ‘working men' (Turner in a slightly more ambiguous sense) threatened by conglomerates; their personal actions become political. Kaplan's model is not so much Hawks as Capra: the action hero has become a dedicated populist....
“In execution the two films are very different. Truck Turner nearly out-Fullers Fuller with its relentless pace, staccato editing, and imaginative violence, climaxing with a shoot-out in a hospital that rivals the opening of Fuller's Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street for sheer ruthlessness. White Line Fever prefers long shots and long takes, making use of a mobile camera to define characters against the ubiquitous horizon line.”