"Get what fixed?"
"Your taillight."
We've all done dumb shit. Let's be honest. And many of us have gotten away with it. Some of us haven't. But no matter whether you got away scott-free or had to sit in a corner, chances are you never had to deal with a creepy trucker named Rusty Nail voiced by the guy who played Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs.
Now, I know what many of you are thinking... Paul Walker? Leelee Sobieski? Why on Earth...?! But, Steve Zahn certainly makes up for both of his co-stars' lack of charisma with a multi-layered performance that skirts the edge of over-the-top without going over.
Aaaaand, Joy Ride is co-written and produced by JJ Abrams (pre-LOST and even pre-Alias) as well as directed by John Dahl (veteran director of Rounders and multiple episodes of True Blood, Dexter, Justified, Californication). This movie has some heat behind it.
To me, this is further proof that good suspense and horror films are the ones in which the director is allowed to shine. If you've ever taken a road trip that lasted a few days, you'd know that there are stretches of time during which you feel like you've left civilization. And if you're anything like me, your imagination begins to run wild with thoughts like
What if I get lost out here?
What if I get stranded?
What if I encounter some crazy person/ crazy family?
Well, Joy Ride is a combination of those things. The 3 leads find themselves the target of a crazy-ass trucker who was the butt of an innocent CB radio prank (God I used to love those things back in the day). There are some genuinely tense moments here... as Rusty Nail seems to be somehow omnipotent- which is believable not because of anything extraordinary or supernatural, but because if you've ever been on a highway you know that trucks rule the road. Piss a trucker off who spends the majority of his life staring at the road ahead with no one to talk to and there's hell to pay...
The pacing of the film, the lighting, Ted Levine's creepy voice... all these things add up and steamroll towards a really tense cliffhanger ending- with some humor thrown in along the way courtesy of Zahn.
You can't get away.
You can't drive fast enough.
No off-ramp is safe.
Joy Ride.
Dreadfully Yours,
~The Hootenanny
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