(Roadtripping with Stevie Z. plus a CB radio equals disaster - be warned)
CAST: Paul Walker, Steve Zahn, Leelee Sobieski, voice of Ted Levine.
DIRECTOR: John Dahl
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and some regrettable road trip antics - straight ahead...
In 1971, a TV movie entitled DUEL was released. It starred Dennis Weaver as a businessman driving through the desert, only to run afoul of a psychotic truck driver - who then proceeds to terrorize the living shit out of him. DUEL was adapted from a story by famed genre writer Richard Matheson, and was one of the first films to be directed by Steven Spielberg. Even then, you could discern the immense talent that Spielberg had: he turns DUEL into an exercise in maximum suspense - with minimal elements.
Flash forward to 2002, and we find another movie trying to one-up DUEL on its own turf. I'm referring to the thriller JOYRIDE, which is basically DUEL - only less effective and told from the point-of-view of two bickering brothers and the chick that tags along with them on a fateful road trip. Why is it less effective than DUEL? Well, I'll save that for the BUT, SERIOUSLY discussion. For now, allow me to regal you with some plot details.
As I mentioned above, our heroes are brothers. Brother # 1 is a vanilla typical dude named Lewis (Paul Walker). Lewis is a UC Berkeley student getting ready to head home to New Jersey on a semester break. He's even got a plane ticket and everything, and is really looking forward to the trip home. That is, when he's not having allnighter conversations with gal pal Venna (Leelee Sobieski), who is matriculating over at the University of Colorado in Denver.
I should point out that Lewis has a mad crush on Venna - and when ol' girl says "Gosh, I wish you had a car so you could drive to Colorado, pick me up, and we could road trip all the way back to Jersey," our boy Lewis's mental wheels start turning. Before you know it, he's cashed in that plane ticket of his - and bought an ugly, piece of shit, clunker of a car which he plans to drive to Colorado with - then to Jersey with Venna in it. Right. That fucking thing looks like it won't make it out of the used car lot without a swift kick to the rear fender.
Whatever. So... Lewis hightails it to Colorado. Unfortunately, before he can get there, Mom calls to inform him that bad boy big brother Fuller (Steve Zahn) has gotten arrested again for drunken behavior in Salt Lake City. Being the good boy little brother that he is, Lewis makes a quick detour to bail his bro out. As if that wasn't nice enough of a gesture, Lewis also allows Fuller to hitch a ride with him back home. This is basically the equivalent of letting the Tasmanian Devil share a cab with you. In other words: big mistake.
Fuller proceeds to do the following things to annoy Lewis: (1) tease him about his crush on Venna, (2) tease him about being a vanilla goodie-goodie, and (3) buy a CB radio from a roadside garage to fuck with all the truck drivers around them. Actually, to be fair, Fuller gets the CB radio to be able to get a "fuzz" alert along the highway. Being able to fuck with truck drivers is just a pleasant side benefit.
At any rate, Fuller gets the brilliant idea to have Lewis impersonate a female trucker named "Kandy Kane." After some initial resistance, Lewis embraces his inner queen and starts cooing in a falsetto voice so unnerving, it's hard to imagine anyone but the horniest (and dumbest) truck driver believing he's actually a woman. But it seems to work, because soon another trucker named "Rusty Nail" is fairly panting over the airwaves, trying to arrange a hook-up with Kandy Kane/Lewis. Or at least some CB sex. Which is like phone sex, only sleazier.
Long story short, Lewis and Fuller continue to fuck with Rusty Nail. Soon, the poor trucker is so horned up that he actually agrees to meet up with nonexistent (and very gay-voiced) paramour at a nearby motel. Except our heroes give Rusty Nail the number of the room next door to them - which just happens to be occupied by an asshole businessman who earlier tussled with Fuller. In other words, our boys are fucking around with more people than just Rusty Nail now.
It all backfires, though, when Rusty Nail shows up next door and basically attacks the businessman for not being a falsetto-voiced chick. Of course, we don't see any of this. We just hear it through the walls, along with Lewis and Fuller. The next day, they discover from the local cops that they businessman had his, um, jaw ripped off.
Feeling very guilty that their joke seriously backfired, Lewis and Fuller quickly continue on to pick up Venna. Of course, they don't tell her anything about what happened, because that would only ruin the mood. And, goddamnit, Lewis is determined to salvage something out of this road trip, which is starting to look like the highway equivalent of the sinking of the Titanic.
Unfortunately, Rusty Nail is also determined to salvage something from his road trip - and basically stalks Lewis, Fuller, and Venna across several states, it seems. Clearly, this is one trucker who should have "Payback Is A Bitch" painted on the side of his rig.
Will Rusty Nail kill 'em all? Or will they figure out a way to outsmart him? What happens when Rusty Nail abducts Venna's roommate Charlotte (Jessica Bowman)? What does he have planned for all of them? How is it possible from a dork like Fuller and a blandie like Lewis to be from the same gene pool?
I already know the answers to the above. Now it's your turn.
BUT, SERIOUSLY: Put simply, JOYRIDE is no DUEL. It does generate a decent amount of suspense, especially in the first half, and has a trio of likable leads. Unfortunately, things get more and more implausible as the film hurtles towards its climax. Unlike DUEL, this film just doesn't know when to quit, throwing crisis upon crisis on us. Fortunately, the gradually building suspense from the first half of the film give JOYRIDE a momentum that carries it over some rather improbable plot holes.
As for the cast, both Paul Walker and Leelee Sobieski are okay, if not a little bland. Steve Zahn pretty much steals the show with his reliably quirky and zany take on Fuller. And Ted Levine's voice gives the unseen Rusty Nail a lot of menace and malice.
Unfortunately, it's the script's handling of Rusty Nail in the second half of the film that hampers JOYRIDE. While the unseen villain in DUEL remained credibly threatening and frightening, Rusty Nail basically turns into an evil Superman who is improbably ahead of our heroes by a dozen steps. If the writers had concentrated on more believable threats and opted for a less over-the-top approach, JOYRIDE would have lived up to the promise of its first half.
John Dahl's direction is near-masterful in the first half of the film, putting the emphasis on gradually-building suspense. Unfortunately, his helming becomes more generic and workman-like when we segue into the more action-packed latter half. It feels like any action director could have handled that part.
In the end, JOYRIDE is a decent thriller. But, as I've mentioned before, it's no DUEL.
