This movie is flawless. The characters, the plot, dialogue, and the hauntingly beautiful scenery combine to make a movie that is breathtaking. The story is plausible and fascinating, the timing perfect. George O'Brien (Jim Metzler) plays a clean-cut, yuppyish computer executive who takes off from Southern California for Reno with almost half a million dollars in embezzled money in the trunk of his car (Volvo, of course) to set up a new operation in Reno. He suddenly finds himself in a different world when he stops on a lonely stretch of highway near Death Valley and picks up a young couple who have rolled their car on the side of the highway. The duo, perky Patti (Jennifer Rubin) and her sickly companion Chevy (Kyle Secor), quickly turn out to be far more trouble than George could ever have imagined.
The way the personalities of the characters unfold is psychological drama at its absolute finest. At first George cringes at the sophomoric banter of his two passengers, a sleazy gambler and his part-showgirl, part-prostitute "better half." But things get really edgy when he tries to part ways with the luckless pair, and soon George finds himself and his car taken hostage at the point of a gun.
As the story moves quickly along, so does the viewer's insight into the complex personalities of the three main characters. Patti is as much a survivor as Chevy is a pathological and abusive hoodlum. The movie deserves to be viewed over and over again. Every piece of dialogue, even the smallest gesture, carries its own bit of symbolism, clues to the troubled lives of the hitchhikers and the confusion and mounting terror felt by their unwilling host.
This movie accomplishes more with body language than others achieve with the most spectacular visual effects. Even minor characters like Robert Costanzo, who plays a tawdry Las Vegas mobster, and Jerry Orbach as his inconvenient operative, are fascinating and memorable.
If the definitive mark of the film noir is the interaction between tragic, troubled people with conflicting agendas, this is the future face of the genre. There isn't a meaningless moment.
The way the personalities of the characters unfold is psychological drama at its absolute finest. At first George cringes at the sophomoric banter of his two passengers, a sleazy gambler and his part-showgirl, part-prostitute "better half." But things get really edgy when he tries to part ways with the luckless pair, and soon George finds himself and his car taken hostage at the point of a gun.
As the story moves quickly along, so does the viewer's insight into the complex personalities of the three main characters. Patti is as much a survivor as Chevy is a pathological and abusive hoodlum. The movie deserves to be viewed over and over again. Every piece of dialogue, even the smallest gesture, carries its own bit of symbolism, clues to the troubled lives of the hitchhikers and the confusion and mounting terror felt by their unwilling host.
This movie accomplishes more with body language than others achieve with the most spectacular visual effects. Even minor characters like Robert Costanzo, who plays a tawdry Las Vegas mobster, and Jerry Orbach as his inconvenient operative, are fascinating and memorable.
If the definitive mark of the film noir is the interaction between tragic, troubled people with conflicting agendas, this is the future face of the genre. There isn't a meaningless moment.