Highwaymen - I banditi della strada

Look this film ain't gonna wow audiences and I'm pretty sure there's some enormous plot holes if you dive that far into it, but the concepts kool, the cars sound awesome and all the actors do their jobs pretty well too.

I think the cars really are the star of the show here but all the actors Cavaziel, Mitra and Faison bring enough here to entertain. Personally I would have a liked a bit more backstory for Feores character but maybe that's just me.

Fun popcorn flick that ain't gonna be everyone's cuppa tea but if you like thrillers with a thread of a story, nice sounding cars and pretty good acting then it's a cheeky hour and 17 minutes plus credits.

TLDR- Cars that sounds awesome, nice driving scene's, okay acting. I enjoyed it.

This could've been a descent movie had someone edited out the nonsense and the unacceptable scenes that made absolutely no sense. Believability is a priority in any movie and a hook to keep em guessing right up to the end, not some safety cop blasting a shotgun for no more reason than shock value. Lastly ....a great cast deserved better. So much of the movie lacked any kind of logic and/or continuity. Maybe some interjection of humor could have helped this dark movie or possibly a surprise ending that set things straight or maybe even a few flashbacks to help balance the meat of the story line. I wanted to care about the characters and their plight but I just didn't.

This is an easy to watch straightforward thriller. The type of movie you just back and enjoy.

A crazed serial killer is running young women down and it's up to Jim Caviezel to hunt him down. The plot is far fetched as many action thrillers are but the cast do such an impressive job that it's hard not to get involved in the story. Whereby most action movies involve actors of a questionable quality, Jim Caviezel and Rhona Mitra are excellent in this ably supported by Frankie Faison.

There are some terrific high action action moments including one particularly suspenseful one.

My only criticism of the film would be the pantomime bad guy and the fact that the ending is as predictable as a wet English summer. However there is much to enjoy in this film and i'm surprised it wasn't a bigger hit.

It's been 18 years and a long time in the TV movie/Van Damme C-list wilderness since Robert Harmon screeched onto the big screen with the acrid blend of scorching oil and hot blood that was The Hitcher. With Highwaymen, he's back in the familiar territory of eerie desert landscapes, lonesome blacktop unspooling to the horizon and two men engaged in a dance of death so ritualised and implausible that it's near-mythic. Rennie Cray (Jim Caviezel) is a vengeful fury, prowling the interstates in a battered Plymouth Barracuda as he stalks the hit-and-run killer who brutally murdered his wife five years previously. This deadly game of tag has left his nemesis James Fargo (Colm Feore) a spite-filled human wreck of broken flesh and prosthetic limbs lashed together with harnesses and straps in his customised Cadillac, taunting Cray with newspaper cuttings of his fresh kills. Caught in the middle is Molly (Rhona Mitra), a survivor of Fargo's latest attack and most likely his next target. Harmon doesn't get bogged down in logic and back story for this fusion of Duel and Crash; indeed, his sketched-in biographies for each protagonist feel welded on as an afterthought. Mitra's got nothing to do but look very fetching as she plays buffeted pawn-in-the-middle, but that's okay because Caviezel and Feore are only required to look grim and tormented as they have at each other time and again on the battleground of the highway. It's a tight 72 minutes but the director still takes time to capture the alien mood of the desert, a landscape further imbued with mystery by Mark Isham's effective electronic score. In marked contrast is Harmon's eroticisation of the car, the camera's lingering fascination with the scars of road accidents, wince-inducing moments of impact and the gunning engines pouring from the soundtrack like the howls of coupling dragons. The climax is appropriately downbeat save for a crummy last scene kiss-off and plot holes the size of Arizona open up when you stop to think about it, but this is a movie best enjoyed in the moment.

It is great to finally get a film that doesn't run to the safety of digital video, computer special effects, and loud music.

"Highwaymen" finally gives us a thriller, that avoids all the crutches of the mainstream film-making that we have seen in the last few years. The stunts are all metal cars crashing into each other - no fancy effects (i.e. Nic Cage jumping a bridge in a digital mustang during the cheesy "Gone in 60 seconds" remake). Here we have car doors getting ripped off and then actually being replaced with second-hand parts by the characters in the film - a realistic car chase film. Finally.

The music, by Mark Isham, is very simple and very scary. It brings back memories of "Halloween" and "Nightmare on Elm Street" - when filmmakers knew how to use frequencies to build tension. There is no Brittany Spears or Metallica singles on the soundtrack, indicating that at least one filmmaker still can hold his own, and not fall to the popular vote when designing a film's soundtrack.

The acting is excellent - Jim Caviezel is great.

The cinematography is first class - and on film, which is refreshing when much of the movie takes place at night and many filmmakers get scared and run to video nowadays (Michael Mann "Collateral"). Great land scapes and long empty roads are brilliantly photographed by cinematographer Rene Ohashi.

By far the best are the sound effects. All the car engine sounds are greatly accurate - from the Barricuda's Hemi to El Dorado's big block - all sounds are accurately placed and brilliantly timed. This, and all the great car-talk within the dialogue makes for a true car film that anyone who loved the old car chase films of the late 60's to the late 70's, would greatly enjoy this one as well.