Joy Ride (2001)

Joy Ride (2001)
Reviewed by Eugene Novikov
http://www.ultimate-movie.com/

"Room 17. Do not be one minute late."

Starring Paul Walker, Steve Zahn, Leelee Sobieski. Directed by John Dahl. Rated R.

The methods of Paul Walker, the un-actor, and Steve Zahn, the character actor, combine in this by-the-numbers thriller that combines elements of Duel and Scream for a mostly unimaginative good time. The film wants to be terrifying, but never comes close to the level of horror reached by Jeepers Creepers earlier this year. You can feel it trying with every fiber of its being.

You should bump the grade below up a notch or two if you've been the victim of cruel and humiliating pranks and would enjoy seeing the pranksters get their comeuppance; Joy Ride is a movie about a joke that goes terribly wrong. Lewis Thomas (Walker) has just picked up his troublemaker brother Fuller (Zahn), and is on his way to pick up his girlfriend (Leelee Sobieski) and head to New Jersey. Fuller talks Lewis into buying a trucker-style CB radio to make the trip interesting. And does it ever get interesting.

While chatting to whoever they can find on a particular frequency, Fuller gets a brilliant idea: pretend to be a woman, and give a trucker with the moniker "Rusty Nail" the notion that "Candy Cane" wants to meet him tonight, in room 17 of a local motel. They then park themselves in room 18 of the same establishment, and listen through the wall as strange, incomprehensible grunts and moans emanate from the next room. The next morning they find out that the inhabitant of room 17 had his jaw ripped off.

Now, of course Rusty Nail is AFTER THEM - OMIGOD! - and he has a menacing 18-wheeler to chase them down. You never see his face, but you do get to hear his oh-so-creepy voice on the CB radio. And he somehow manages to always know where they are and what they are doing.

Joy Ride is pretty solid as these kinds of films go, I guess, but it's completely undistinguished: it's not that scary, not that exciting, not that creative. It doesn't even give us the dubious satisfaction of being remarkably bad. As directed by Rounders' John Dahl, the film just sits on the screen, not making any sort of impression.

There are a couple of skillful set pieces. I liked the scene in the motel, which exhibits the ambiguity and the sense of uncertainty that the rest of the movie lacks. A cornfield provides a familiar, but still effective, backdrop for Joy Ride's pre-climax, which is far scarier than the climax itself.

In the end, the villain turns out to be disappointingly ordinary. In Steven Spielberg's Duel, also about a truck driver harassing a motorist, you never get to see the villain at all; he remains an ominous representation of pure evil. Here, you don't get a good look at the bad guy either, but you see enough to figure out that he is merely a violent, depressed, insecure, pathetic human being. This is bad news for a horror movie.

The resolution is confusing and not particularly satisfying (I find I'm complaining about endings a lot more lately - is it just me?), and Paul Walker, supposedly the protagonist, still can't act (pardon my naïveté, but I still thought some semblance of acting ability was a required addition to good looks when being cast in a major motion picture). Steve Zahn is an excellent foil for the stoic Walker, though, and Sobieski, for the few minutes of screen time she actually gets, is radiant. If only the rest of the movie were on her level.

Grade: C+

Up Next: Iron Monkey

©2001 Eugene Novikov

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X-Language: en
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X-RT-TitleID: 1110152
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X-RT-RatingText: C+