Highwaymen - I banditi della strada

"Highwaymen" marks the return of director Robert Harmon and composer Mark Isham to the subgenre of road-film terror they all but established in 1986's landmark horror film, "The Hitcher." Whereas that film coasted on the ambiguity of Eric Red's minimalist script and the bizarre chemistry between a psychopath (Rutger Hauer) and his victim (C. Thomas Howell), "Highwaymen" is a much 'cleaner' version of that film--cleaner in terms of cinematography, violence, and overall appearance. It's an extremely glossy production with well-choreographed action and razor-sharp editing that places you in the midst of chaos rather than just assaulting your senses. Jim Caviezel's jaded victim exudes the right notes of obsession and exhaustion, and Rhona Mitra's pseudo-Sandra Bullock looks go a long way as she joins up to hunt down Fargo (Colm Feore, looking like a refugee from David Cronenberg's "Crash"), a killer who uses his souped-up 1972 El Dorado as a weapon. As he did in "The Hitcher," Harmon shows confident skill in photography, editing, and the decision to keep villain Fargo off camera for the first hour, thereby upping the suspense considerably. Isham's musical score sets a proper mood and is just as effective as his previous work. Where "Highwaymen" comes up short is in its straightforward, bare-bones story (padded out somewhat by the addition of Frankie Faison's traffic investigator); clocking in at a paltry 81 minutes (including end credits), one gets the impression that characters could have been developed further and more action sequences could have been infused into the film. As it stands, "Highwaymen" is in too much of a hurry, but remains a diverting, fine-tuned thriller all the same.

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.

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.

As if driving the city streets wasn't killer enough add to the terror of car pooling the new thriller by Robert Harmon (The Hitcher / They). Driving from state-to-state from sea-to-shining-sea is a new maniac Fargo (Feore). Fargo is an ex-insurance agent stalking women via hit and run with none other than a 1972 El Dorado. His newest mark is Molly (Mitra), a poor girl if ever there is one, who lost her parents in a car crash and is being toyed with by Fargo. Her only chance of survival is Rennie (Caviezel) who has also suffered loss because of the motor maniac when his wife became one of his early victims. Hunting down Fargo has become Rennie's one and only obsession and no one will get in the way of his vengeance.

Director Robert Harmon returns to the road with this his new (albeit long delayed) thriller. I didn't expect a whole lot due to the releasing woes the film has had which culminated in it being dumped on home video after a woeful limited release. Strangely enough it was a good, fast paced revenge flick that moved about as fast as the souped-up Barracuda driven by none other than Christ himself. Some nice camera-work adds to the tension of several sequences involving car wrecks and attacks. The film also had some nice photography of the open toad too. The sound design was a hit with a very powerful dts track to highlight all that car action. The acting was what you expect from a script that isn't driven by characters but by steel and asphalt.

If you are able to overlook some glaring plot inconsistencies and an occasional implausible set piece then you might like Highwaymen. I was pleasantly surprised. But if you are DVD aficionado the disc offers no special features. Well worth a look.

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.