For all of us who’ve ever thought Rear Window (1954) would’ve been
better as an Australian trucker movie with Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis,
well, there’s Road Games. Written by the great Everett De Roche for Richard
Franklin (who went on to do Psycho II (1983)), Road Games is a very fun movie that’s
probably a lot more light than it ought to be.
Stacy Keach is Pat Quid, the over-educated, wisecracking, American trucker who reads Chaucer to his pet dingo for fun and hauls pig carcasses across Australia for work. My kinda guy. When Quid notices some suspicious activities surrounding a mysterious van (is there any other kind?), like the sexy hitchhiker it picked up just kinda disappearing, he begins to wonder if that guy isn’t the Ripper he keeps hearing about on the radio.
Like Rear Window, we’re supposed to wonder all along if the guy in the van is really a killer or just a guy who likes screwing hitchhikers—not a crime in Australia at that point. But I don’t think there’s any real doubt about who the killer is or whether Quid is over-imaginative. Keach is so damned likeable in the part, there’s no doubting him. The real question is whether he’ll be able to convince the other loonies he meets on the road.
But Quid doubts himself. And as he does so, various oddballs from the Australian roads come his way, much to our amusement. There’s a lot of good comedy here, like in many of Hitchcock's quirkier films. And it serves a purpose. The suspicions begin to fall on Quid, as his efforts to thwart that van he keeps stumbling upon get him in deeper and deeper trouble.
Jamie Lee Curtis shows up as a helpful hitchhiker, ‘Hitch,’ interested in solving crimes and a little slice of Keach. Fresh off Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), Prom Night (1980), and Terror Train (1980), she comes with the promise of getting a good slasher movie. But that never really happens. More Rear Window than Dressed to Kill (1980), the killer remains at a distance, observed and, since we’re in a truck, stalked, but never really confronted or fled from. In fact, the killer’s identity is ultimately quite a let-down. There’s little real carnage or thrills, just classical suspense.
That’s where the Hitchcockian style tends to hurt the movie, as it seems to really need a more vicious slasher element to it. Instead, we stick close to our protagonist and the final confrontation can only go one way. It’s rather quaint. But the playfulness of Road Games goes a long way to mitigate these disappointments. Quid and Hitch are fun to hang out with.
Stacy Keach is Pat Quid, the over-educated, wisecracking, American trucker who reads Chaucer to his pet dingo for fun and hauls pig carcasses across Australia for work. My kinda guy. When Quid notices some suspicious activities surrounding a mysterious van (is there any other kind?), like the sexy hitchhiker it picked up just kinda disappearing, he begins to wonder if that guy isn’t the Ripper he keeps hearing about on the radio.
Like Rear Window, we’re supposed to wonder all along if the guy in the van is really a killer or just a guy who likes screwing hitchhikers—not a crime in Australia at that point. But I don’t think there’s any real doubt about who the killer is or whether Quid is over-imaginative. Keach is so damned likeable in the part, there’s no doubting him. The real question is whether he’ll be able to convince the other loonies he meets on the road.
But Quid doubts himself. And as he does so, various oddballs from the Australian roads come his way, much to our amusement. There’s a lot of good comedy here, like in many of Hitchcock's quirkier films. And it serves a purpose. The suspicions begin to fall on Quid, as his efforts to thwart that van he keeps stumbling upon get him in deeper and deeper trouble.
Jamie Lee Curtis shows up as a helpful hitchhiker, ‘Hitch,’ interested in solving crimes and a little slice of Keach. Fresh off Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), Prom Night (1980), and Terror Train (1980), she comes with the promise of getting a good slasher movie. But that never really happens. More Rear Window than Dressed to Kill (1980), the killer remains at a distance, observed and, since we’re in a truck, stalked, but never really confronted or fled from. In fact, the killer’s identity is ultimately quite a let-down. There’s little real carnage or thrills, just classical suspense.
That’s where the Hitchcockian style tends to hurt the movie, as it seems to really need a more vicious slasher element to it. Instead, we stick close to our protagonist and the final confrontation can only go one way. It’s rather quaint. But the playfulness of Road Games goes a long way to mitigate these disappointments. Quid and Hitch are fun to hang out with.
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