Joy Ride | Review

Do you remember back in the day, when there was no *69 and you would play the prankster and randomly select seven digits and punch it into the telephone? Do you also remember when you would the so-called victim of such a prank? Now you can get the gist for the latest thriller from director John Dahl. Joy Ride is what happens when Lewis (Paul Walker Varsity Blues) from New Jersey, embarks on a road trip of sorts to pick up his girlfriend Venna (Leelee Sobieski Eyes Wide Shut) from Colorado. On his way there he makes a quick pit-stop to pick up his newly released older brother Fuller (Steve Zahn Reality Bites) from jail. Stuck in a used car with plenty of mileage ahead of them, the older brother decides to invest in a little divertissement. As we soon discover, the CB radio makes for loads of fun, throw in a couple of accents and funny code names and they discover that there is plenty of value from this new found form of entertainment. Knowing that the road can be a lonely place, they decide to prey on one unlucky truck driver out on the airwaves. The practical joke on a driver going by the name of Rusty Nail turns into their worst nightmare, which paves the way for what will be the car ride from hell.

Okay, so the story sounds a little ridiculous, but nonetheless the film doesn’t attempt to do otherwise- but entertain you with some mindless fun, namely because Dahl never forgets who he is catering to. He is fully aware that the film has no elaborate and thick plot and he is fully aware that the audience knows what will happen, that the audience knows all the set-ups, so Dahl manages to make this story as believable as possible, there are no-why don’t they just go to the police?, or why don’t they just fly? Looks like some people used there heads for looking at the words of a script instead of looking at the numbers of a projected gross revenue. The first smart choice in the making of this film was the casting of Zahn. I especially liked him in the scene where he is filling up his tank at the gas station and in the getting out-of-a-sticky situation at a bar scene. He completely steals the show, as the bag-full-of-jokes sibling, as the brother that is totally freaked out; he literally gives us something to look forward in every scene. In what I would call a reappraisal of another good performance (Happy, Texas) his performance is key to making the predictable narrative almost obsolete. He puts the shade on co-star Walker, which at his best, is a good-looking stand-in for sitting in a car- also a reappraisal of sorts for him (The Fast and the Furious). In addition, there is the girlfriend (Sobieski) that is not dumbed-down and appears to have some common sense which is somewhat refreshing and then there is our psychopath, with an identity that is guarded by heavy shadowing and only revealed as this unfriendly voice-cool stuff. Dahl is good at creating the mood with some nice choices in lighting with some parking-lot neon-blinding red and green and plenty of night shots to create the ambience. Add a touch of noir-feeling and a well-timed and applied fright-factor device such as the ringing telephones and the running through the fields and it becomes evident that there was an effort to create atmosphere and some high tension situations. He also shows go timing when he breaks away from such sequences and provides us with plenty of humour. In theory, the film looks exactly like most of those teen horror crap films that are produced at a rate of one a week, but instead it packs a punch with a pleasurable mix of a thriller-comedy-horror flick with a little something for everyone- served up in small mostly in small servings for the better part of the picture while leaving the real adrenaline rush/frenzy for the end. The film never takes itself too seriously, but it does have the same kind of smartness that could be found in a film like Scream. I suggest giving this one a try, call up a couple of friends and enjoy a couple of good laughs and some jumping-out-of-the-seat-moments. Let’s hope that they keep up the momentum for the rest of the franchise.

Rating 2.5 stars