Joy Ride (2001)
Directed by John Dahl
Three young people on a road trip from Colorado to New Jersey talk to a trucker on their CB radio, then must escape when he turns out to be a psychotic killer.
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What critics compared Joy Ride to
Anyone who remembers Steven Spielberg's debut with "Duel" will see its influence here.
There will be comparisons to Steven Spielberg�s Duel, and they aren�t too far off.
In another gripping scene, Fuller and Lewis's car is squished up against a tree by the evil truck driver's cab (calling to mind Steven Spielberg's 1971 feature debut, the excellent Duel ).
The script owes too many debts to be repaid; it siphons fuel freely from Steven Spielberg's classic "Duel," Richard Franklin's Australian thriller "Road Games," Jonathan Mostow's underrated "Breakdown" and, in a fake nail-chewing climax, "The Silence of the Lambs."
Its menacing trucker theme reminded me most of Steven Spielberg's 1971 film "Duel," though this one is played more for laughs.
To a certain extent, it's a ripoff of the famous 1971 Spielberg television movie "Duel," but it also neatly blends in elements of both the current teen-scream genre and the 1990s' neo-films-noir that made Dahl's name.
Director John Dahl (Red Rock West, The Last Seduction) gets the movie off to an unpromising start with routine dorm-room exposition and the juvenile CB stunt, which might have gained more sympathy for the jokesters had Walker's repartee been more clever.
Joy Ride was directed by John Dahl, who did great work on the modern noirs Red Rock West and The Last Seduction, and here he shows his skill at pure thriller.
And it helps to have the right director in this case, John Dahl, who's better known for character-driven thrillers like 1993's "Red Rock West" and 1994's "The Last Seduction."
Like director John Dahl's other well-constructed, hard-driven thrillers -- "The Last Seduction," "Red Rock West" and "Kill Me Again" -- it is a well-traveled road with a lot of unexpected turnoffs.
Though hardly in the same league as filmmaker John Dahl's previous jaunts into thriller territory - ie 1992's Red Rock West, 1994's The Last Seduction, etc - Joy Ride ultimately comes off as a sporadically uneven yet thoroughly entertaining B-movie that boasts a number of genuinely exhilarating sequences and set-pieces.
At times it feels like nothing more than a brain dead white-knuckler (in the vein of 2001’s underrated “Joy Ride”), but then he switches gears and awkwardly injects social commentary.
Like in Steven Spielberg's Duel or John Dahl's Joy Ride, we are confronted with an implacable enemy.