Rage

Rage sets out to be a remake of Steven Spielberg's all-time classic Duel, very lofty ambitions indeed.

The first problem is the makers of Rage did not have the money or skills to make a road movie. So we have a guy on a bike and a guy in a car navigating the roads of Portland. Then the camera shakes as the bike 'hits' the car, just one example of many laughably poor scenes.

As a road movie is out then Rage becomes a low-budget and pretty pointless horror movie, as a remake of Duel it falls way, way short of the mark.

If you want to see a great revenge style movie then watch Duel, if you want to watch something nowhere near as good with less style and pointless killing then watch this.

Writer Dennis Twist (Rick Crawford) drives into town to end his extra-marital affair with lover Dana, but winds up invoking the wrath of a mysterious motorcyclist on the way. En route home, Dennis finds himself terrorised by the leather-clad, black-helmeted biker, who will stop at nothing to satisfy his rage.

Low budget horror/thriller Rage borrows so heavily from Steven Spielberg's Duel that its writer/director Chris Witherspoon feels obliged to acknowledge the fact with a scene where two incidental characters discuss the 1971 movie at length. In doing so, his film becomes an homage (which sounds so much better than rip-off, don'tcha think?). As if nicking the plot wasn't enough, Witherspoon also names his central character Dennis—presumably after Dennis Weaver, who played the lead in Spielberg's movie—and gives his film a similarly snappy four letter title.

For his final act, Witherspoon turns to the slasher genre for inspiration, his motorbiking psycho becoming a seemingly indestructible bogeyman à la Michael Myers, not just targeting Dennis, but also his poor wife Crystal (who, in one particularly brutal scene, is beaten up and raped), and an elderly couple who live across the street who meet a gruesome fate via the business end of a chainsaw.

However, despite the flagrant cribbing and a general lack of originality regarding the plot, Rage didn't have me flying into one. Witherspoon's film is actually a reasonably well crafted thriller, one that certainly belies its budgetary limitations, delivering some decent thrills and spills, cool characterisation (Dennis is such a slime-bag), and a smattering of gnarly violence. I doubt very much if it will launch Witherspoon as the next Spielberg, but as 'homages' go, I've seen plenty worse.

I started out making a blog for movie reviews a short while ago for the purpose of making reviews for fans. However, I didn't expect to be sent films to review so soon. I was put in touch with film maker Chris Witherspoon, he is promoting an independent film that he wrote, produced, directed and starred in called Rage. He sent me a copy and asked if I would review it for him. Happily I accepted. This is what being a film critic and reviewer is all about. Then I started to think, an independent film? There are a lot of them around and a lot of them are made by people that believe they possess the talent and ability to make a film, but in reality they fall far short of the mark. To get a good and unbiased opinion of the film I only watched the trailer for it, I left all the promotional material I received alone. The film arrived and with a fair amount of trepidation I put it on.

The film is about Dennis, a struggling writer with a loving wife Crystal (Audrey Walker) and a mistress Dana (Anna Lodej). Heading out one day he encounters a figure on a motorcycle in a car park. Pushing the encounter to one side he meets up with Dana. During the meeting he tells her that he loves his wife and breaks off the affair. She doesn't take it all that well. Once back in his car he encounters the biker again and this time the biker scratches his car and rides off. This leads to a game of cat and mouse, where at first Dennis hunts the biker down but the confrontations escalate and Dennis is soon in fear for his life. He now believes that the biker is a former boyfriend of his now ex-lover out for revenge. The biker arrives at Dennis's home and things turn deadly.

I went into this with a very open mind. I knew this was an independent film and I didn't expect too much from it. I find this is the best way to view new films. The film started off well with good introductions to the main characters but by the time the second encounter with the biker happened I found myself drawn in to the film. I forgot all about reviewing the film and got engrossed into the story. The film finished and not for a single moment did I feel bored. The pacing of the film is great, the story progresses well and the characters are well written and acted. The biker is menacing and all the more so because you don't really know his motives. The direction is professional and makes good use of lighting and colouring. The effects are very well utilised during the films climax. But the best thing about the movie was the way the story kept you guessing. I thought I had the plot figured out about 5 different times but each time I was wrong. That's what makes a good thriller/horror. There is one particular scene that was emotionally hard to watch but its place in the film drives the story and the terror forward to a new level.

You can see with this film that Chris Witherspoon is a very talented film maker. I wish him luck and hope this film has the desired effect and someone takes a chance on his abilities. I would love to see what he could to with a studio backing him. After all Spielberg started out with a movie called Duel about a truck pursuing and terrorising someone.

If you get the chance to see this film you really should take the chance. If you do you will see the start of hopefully a very successful film maker.

This movie has an interesting premise which made me want to watch it. Unfortunately, the budget, story, acting and skills involved in it's making fell short.

Rage reminds me of a mix between The Room and Birdemic in it's execution.

The Acting is bland and at times annoying, with a few exceptions. The main protagonist is an unlikable character, with no redeeming qualities. I found myself rooting for the antagonist throughout, with the exception of the protagonist's wife, who seems likely to be the only one in the movie with anything between her ears.

Worth a watch if you are inclined to liking bad movies, and/or want a movie to make fun of and laugh at, while picking it apart.

As far as over-enthusiast amateur fan-boy movies go, you could do a lot worse than "Rage". This film is the one-man-project of Chris Witherspoon, who wrote, edited, filmed, produced and directed everything by himself, and he played one of the lead roles as well, although admittedly it is a role that doesn't require a lot of acting skills and/or facial charisma. The plot can simply be described as a sick cat-and-mouse game between a man in a car and someone on a motorcycle with a pitch-black helmet. Does that remind you of something? Well yes, in fact, Witherspoon's film is an obvious reboot of Steven Spielberg's powerful TV-movie debut "Duel", with a motorcycle instead of a truck. The similarities are so unmistakable that Spielberg's classic is even referred to - in detail - in a piece of dialogue between two random characters. This presumably was the director's bright plan to prevent him from getting called a rip-off artist or an imitator. It's all fine by me, because "Rage" is suspenseful and entertaining, with a good pacing and a couple of effective shock moments. During the last half hour, Witherspoon abandons the "Duel" premise and goes straight for over-the-top slasher action. Why not, right?