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#165 - Roadgames
Richard Franklin, 1981
A truck driver gets caught up in a game of cat-and-mouse when he suspects a van driver to be a serial killer.
Roadgames looked like it had the potential to be a dark little genre film with its Hitchcockian premise and gritty low-budget vibe, but unfortunately that potential gets kind of wasted over the course of the film. Having a pair of recognisable American actors in the form of Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis as the trucker protagonist and a hitch-hiker respectively was an alright idea that only helped to emphasise how out-of-place their characters were against the barren highway setting, but it doesn't quite pay off. It's a one-man show for Keach as he frequently ends up soliloquising to his pet dingo about his observations, with only the occasional human interaction where he (unknowingly and understandably) comes across as a little unsure of how to talk to people properly. Unfortunately, even an actor as good as he is struggles to make the most of the material he's given. Curtis isn't much better - she gets far less screen-time and her scenes with Keach still feel quite stilted. The locals in the cast aren't particularly memorable, though.
The thriller angle is teased well enough - there are plenty of instances that play up Keach's paranoia to the point where he may very well be imagining things, to say nothing of how complete strangers will treat him with disdain and hostility for no good reason. This plays well enough into the conclusion, but by that point it feels like too little, too late. Be sure to settle in for a lot of truck-driving, night-time footage, blandly mundane dialogue and third-act histrionics (especially on the soundtrack) when you watch this. Despite its promising outline, Roadgames struggles to fill out its running time with engaging material.
Richard Franklin, 1981
A truck driver gets caught up in a game of cat-and-mouse when he suspects a van driver to be a serial killer.
Roadgames looked like it had the potential to be a dark little genre film with its Hitchcockian premise and gritty low-budget vibe, but unfortunately that potential gets kind of wasted over the course of the film. Having a pair of recognisable American actors in the form of Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis as the trucker protagonist and a hitch-hiker respectively was an alright idea that only helped to emphasise how out-of-place their characters were against the barren highway setting, but it doesn't quite pay off. It's a one-man show for Keach as he frequently ends up soliloquising to his pet dingo about his observations, with only the occasional human interaction where he (unknowingly and understandably) comes across as a little unsure of how to talk to people properly. Unfortunately, even an actor as good as he is struggles to make the most of the material he's given. Curtis isn't much better - she gets far less screen-time and her scenes with Keach still feel quite stilted. The locals in the cast aren't particularly memorable, though.
The thriller angle is teased well enough - there are plenty of instances that play up Keach's paranoia to the point where he may very well be imagining things, to say nothing of how complete strangers will treat him with disdain and hostility for no good reason. This plays well enough into the conclusion, but by that point it feels like too little, too late. Be sure to settle in for a lot of truck-driving, night-time footage, blandly mundane dialogue and third-act histrionics (especially on the soundtrack) when you watch this. Despite its promising outline, Roadgames struggles to fill out its running time with engaging material.