I have just watched this film on Channel 4 (they have given us another brilliant film to watch on a Sunday night) and I must say, I loved it. A lot of people have said it wasn’t all that good, so I watched it expecting to turn it off in the first half an hour, but I started to watch it and didn’t move until it had finished!
The film is actually about a Jeff (Kurt Russel) and Amy Taylor (Kathleen Quinlan) who are making a cross country trip across to californa when they are going to set up home. They own a doughnut shop or something and have quite a bit of money in the bank and the nice car shows it. The car they are in breaks down in the middle of no where and they are ‘rescued’ by a driver of an 18 wheel trucker (J.T Walsh). They decide that Amy should go with the trucker to the nearest bar to make a phone call to the breakdown service who can then rescue them and Jeff stays with the truck as he doesn’t want it nicked. However, things don’t quite go to plan.
Jeff manages to fix the truck himself, so goes off to pick up his wife from the bar, only to find shes not there and hasn’t even been there, so where is his wife? Well, I’m not going to spoil the film for you so all I’m going to tell you is that Kurt is living his worst nightmare and his wife has been captured by a gang who want his money to release them. Kurt doesn’t let go of his money all that easily so does his best to protect his wife and his money at the same time, however, as he discovers, this isn’t to easy.
This film is a non stop rollercoaster of thrills and suspense. You will find yourself captured very quickly wondering what is going to happen next. It’s your typical thriller really, except for one thing, it actually keeps hold of you and ties you down to the seat your sat in! Ok, you know who is doing what, there is no secrecy and you don’t have to work anything out, it’s all placed in front of you but the suspense that the film puts you through definitely makes up for it.
There isn’t really a soundtrack, only the typical ‘danger’ music that was used in lots of the 1980’s films! The plot of the film has been used in other films. I can actually remember a movie that I watched loads when I was a kid about a man being chased in his car by a huge truck but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was called, it must have been made in the 1970’s – 80’s as I was watching it as a little nipper and was born in 1980, if anyone can tell me what it was I’d be very grateful. If you have watched ‘The Vanishing’ then you might think that it’s a little like this film.
This type of film would benefit from the special effects that are used in movies these days, but made back in 1987, it doe’s quite well, there are no big special effects, but this film doesn’t need them, it does well just on its on.
Anyway, I’m rambling now, I would normally write a longer film review than this but I really don’t want to spoil it for you. I’m sure some of you have watched it at the same time as I did, and if your reading this I hope you agree with me. If you missed it and like tense thrillers/action movies then this is one you really should watch and you could probably pick it up in the bargain bucket somewhere and it’s worth a fiver. Take a look on the HMV website for a copy. If you missed it, you should have recorded it!
A good film, but a bit typical of the 1980’s.
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Production Year: 2002 - Thriller - Director: Bharat Nalluri, Rob Bailey, Andy Wilson - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Matthew MacFadyen, Keeley Hawes, David Oyelowo, Peter Firth, Jenny Agutter, Lisa Faulkner
Production Year: 2002 - Thriller - Director: K.C. Bascombe - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Jesse James, Rachel Skarsten, Charles Powell, Linda Purl, Kevin Zegars
Thriller - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Timothy West, Neil Morrissey, Tara Fitzgerald, Annette Crosbie, Pauline Quirke, Rob Brydon, Denise Van Outen, John Thomson, Kevin Whately, David Suchet
I got lost on the doughnut part, I though she just used that as a way of not getting killed, as they had chatted about it earlier, and it was the amount she told the bad guys they had in the bank (the prize money in the competition on the wrapper)
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