Roadgames

I first saw this movie on TV. I taped it and watched it later. A couple of weeks ago I bought it on DVD and re-watched it. I had forgotten just how much I loved it. To me, watching this movie is just like watching an Alfred Hitchcock movie. It's filled with suspense. The characters are amazingly intelligent too, especially Stacy Keach's character, Pat Quid. At one point he picks up a hitchhiker, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, but is a gentleman the whole time she is in his truck. That was perfect. I mean, if he fooled around with her, that would have seriously detracted from the story. All the way through it the story has good supporting characters that only add to the quality of the film. Plus the cinematography in Australia's Outback is beautiful. I also enjoyed the truck driving sequences. One other thing, even though the movie is by no means a comedy, there are some very funny scenes in it, which you should enjoy. I don't want to give any of it away though. You need to watch it for yourself. I highly recommend this one. It's worth at least a rental. You will probably want to own it after seeing it once though. I know I did.

While driving alone through the Australia outback with his dingo, the truck driver Patrick Quid (Stacy Keach) becomes aware that a serial killer is attacking women and he suspects that the driver of a green van is the murderer and is getting rid of the bodies in pieces in plastic bags burying them in the desert. On his way to Perth with a load of pork meat, he gives a ride to the hitchhiker Pamela Rushworth (Jamie Lee Curtis) and tells his theory about the killer to her. When they park in a gas station, they see the van and Pamela decides to break in the car to investigate. When Pamela disappears, Pat pursuits the van while he becomes the prime suspect of the police.

"Roadgames" is a suspenseful black humor road movie, with a good and very tense story, great lines and excellent acting of Stacey Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis. The lead couple shows a fantastic chemistry in a plot that is a sort of combination of "Duel" and "The Hitchhiker". The sexy Jamie Lee Curtis is in the top of her beauty and Stacey Keach has one of his best performances in this attractive film. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Enigma na Estrada" ("Enigma on the Road")

I would not recommend you wait on this if you are a fan of suspense. There is also an early role for Jamie Lee Curtis, as well. There are decent performances all around, save for the horrible police officers. They must have been the real thing.

Pros: High suspense, well-written characters, great use of a low budget, good plot twist, keeps you guessing, fine ending.

Cons: Drags in spots, dialogue can be pretentious and unrealistic, a few continuity issues, with respect to sequencing.

For a PG rated movie, this is rather adult themed and creepy, if not scary. I recommend this film to all.

Road Games is an Ok suspense film by Hitchcock disciple Richard Franklin (see also Psycho II, Link, FX II:The Deadly Art of Illusion). It features a good performance by Stacy Keach as a lone truck driver transporting bacon across the Australian outback during a butcher's strike. Every now and then, Keach comes across other travellers on the road, one of whom is the driver of a mysterious green van. Keach, having heard about a serial killer on the loose on his radio, convinces himself that the driver of the green van is also the murderer the police are looking for. However, Keach takes such ludicrous and unorthodox actions to prove his theory that he ends up making himself look like the culprit.

The main theme here of an innocent man being mistaken for a murderer is as old as the hills. The freshness of this film is provided principally by the unconventional locale (Aussie outback) and the outlandish set of supporting characters introduced during the course of the film. The suspense is good during the main scenes, but in between the film loses momentum. Hardly surprising, since Keach spends much of the film alone, chatting away to himself and his pet dingo in the cab of his truck. Listening to a man talkking to himself is hardly the best way to build excitement. However, you can feel a prickle of terror in your heart during one particularly hair raising sequence in which Keach investigates a peculiar sound in the back of his lorry.

I like this film, but it's no classic. Just one of those quiet, forgotten gems that film buffs ought to seek out for a rainy day.

It's amazing how many pleasant treats you'll find on TV Friday nights at one o'clock in the morning. Take "Roadgames" (or "Road Games") for example: The Hitchcockian story of a trucker delivering meat across Australia who becomes entangled in a possible mystery involving an unapprehensible serial killer who may or may not have murdered a helpless hitchhiker traveling the roads he's driving on.

Often referred to as "Rear Window" on the road, self-proclaimed Hitchcock enthusiast Richard Franklin has directed a quaint, low-budget thriller with a likable (although quite unusual) lead actor in the role of Frustrated Hero.

Pat Quid (Stacy Keach--who is indeed a man) is driving across Australia in a meat truck when he thinks he's noticed a strange happening--a man in a van seems to be burying a bag in the middle of a desert in Australia, and when he is noticed he climbs back into his blue van and speeds away into the distance.

Pat puts this event into the back of his mind when he decides against regulations to pick up a wandering hitchhiker named Pam Rushworth (Jamie Lee Curtis), who has run away from home in an effort to escape her famous father's life. The two bond together on the road and have some fun playing various games--until she is kidnapped by the same strange man in a van. At first, Pat thinks he's just being paranoid--he even starts to think that Pam left him for the man.

But then he realizes that Pam has indeed been kidnapped, and he suspects that the strange man in the van might be a notorious serial killer who has been killing young women and scattering their body parts miles apart from each other.

After the police offer no help, Pat takes matters into his own hands and sets off on a quest to bring back Pam to safety and apprehend the killer before he can strike again. Some twists and turns ensue, although nothing very surprising.

If this were a mainstream horror film with an overblown budget and big-name actors, I'd probably give "Roadgames" a bad rating. But this is the type of pleasant, likable low-budget thriller that is easy to watch and knows it's nothing more than a shadow of greater film noir mysteries/thrillers like "Rear Window" or "The Third Man"--the type of film that thrusts its hero on a one-man venture into the heart of darkness in order to find out the truth.

Stacy Keach is strikingly likable as the lonely trucker who talks to his own pet dingo as he drives along, contemplating all types of conspiracy theories about serial killers and mysteries. What could definitely become tiring--listening to a man talk to his dingo for the majority of a movie, that is--actually becomes quite fun. Keach is funny, nice, and just...likable! Too bad his career was put on hold years later after he got arrested for smuggling cocaine...

The director, Richard Franklin, is a huge Hitchcock fan--and it shows. This film is like a sort of remake of "Rear Window" and other such mystery-thrillers. It's loads of fun and an easy watch. (Trivia note: Franklin directed "Psycho II," the sequel to Hitchcock's 1960 classic original.)

I can definitely say that this film is most like "Breakdown," the Jonathan Mostow movie starring Kurt Russell as a man who loses his wife to a trucker and tries to get her back, even though there seems to be no evidence of her disappearance. But unlike the great "Breakdown," this film doesn't wither away in the second half and turn into a disappointing movie--it remains strong throughout, and yes, it has plenty of nods towards Hitchcock. (Check out the magazines Curtis starts sorting through--there he is!)

3.5/5 stars.

• John Ulmer