No Way Up - Non avrai via di scampo

Tom Weaver (Grayson McCouch) is agitated. His wife Molly (Amy Locane) is arguing with him. He arrives at the work underground parking lot. Victor is the new parking attendant working with old friendly Eddie. He's there with Gavin Matheson (Adrian Paul) to use confidential info to steal $10.6 million. He is on edge and runs into the wrong guy in a rundown menacing truck.

I really don't like the guy. At first, I'm willing to give him some slack because he's obviously under some pressure. There are still some limits. I don't care if this guy gets run over. It might actually be fun to see him get splattered. The truck is nice. The actors are not charismatic enough unless they're trying to be grade A douche bags. This movie needs a better lead in a character with more rooting interest.

This was surprisingly good for a low budget thriller until you find out who the driver of the Black Truck is, then it all falls apart. It then becomes even sillier with a so bad its funny ending. It has the obvious influence of the classic movie "Duel" as inspiration. An absurd twist happens when the big reveal of who the villain is and his motivations are explained that basically ruins the movie because of how ludicrous it all is. But until then it's not bad at all and had some good action scenes and suspense build up.

The acting was pretty good actually. There are some choppy moments in the movie when the main hero has flashbacks, and one especially takes a long time when he is at some office party. These scenes were very poorly done and unnecessarily interrupted the tension of the main plot of a man stalked in an underground parking garage by a menacing black truck.

A yuppie (Grayson McCouch) is being chased in a parking garage by a big truck upon making a deal together with his shady and aggressive boss (Adrian Paul) with involvement of fraud. At the same time he is obsessed with a possible adultery committed by his young and beautiful wife (Amy Locane). We have to find out who is trying to kill ,why and couple of other things.

To disregard the fact that we have already seen quite many films with similar plot (e.g. "Duel", "Joyride", etc.), this film is failing to deliver what it's prototypes have accomplished. Badly written dialogues and average acting spoil the whole suspense which the film makers are trying to achieve simply by doing the scenes with a truck trying to kill the protagonist. On the other hand, the motives of the villain are quite illogical because while in some scenes he/she is badly trying to kill the hero but fails to dot that due to quickness of the latter, in other scenes he/she has a perfect opportunity to succeed in killing but lets the man go. This cat and mouse game takes place throughout the whole movie and at times it's hard to understand true desire of the villain - whether he/she is trying to kill the man or is just flirting with him.

The flashback scenes where we see the relationship of the protagonist with his wife, his boss (Adrian Pole) and his lover (Michele Beisner) are not quite satisfying either. These scenes vaguely concern the main storyline and some of the characters turn out to be irrelevant to the plot. Subplot concerning the adulteries taking place in protagonist's life turns out to be quite meaningless as well, with respect to rest of the film plot.

Good thing about the film is that it is pretty hard to spot the villain. I was unable to guess who was in the truck and was quite surprised when I finally got to know that. So, if you want to know who is behind that truck wheel and what is going on in his/her head, just watch this average thriller. After all, it's worth watching once if you have nothing else to watch.

This is one of those movies that presents itself as a kind of homage to an earlier classic while really just amounting to little more than a rehash of the original's central theme. As you watch you can almost imagine the full extent of the writer's thought processes: I'll make Duel. In an underground car park.

And that's it.

The references to Spielberg's early 70s TV flick are too blatant to be missed - at one point a Dennis Weaver lookalike casts a baleful glance in our hero's direction as he drives past in a red car identical to the one Weaver drove in Duel, and the main character's name is also Weaver. He's a good guy who has flirted with badness in the form of a $10 million business scam with his crooked boss before pulling out at the last minute. Our hero is lantern-jawed and handsome in that bland and plastic style beloved of daytime soap TV producers, and possesses all the initiative of a paper cup.

The movie presents us with an array of possible culprits as we watch Weaver being chased for reasons unknown around the car park by a huge truck with a bank of floodlights mounted on its cabin roof : could it be the new security guard with the attitude? The (possibly) cheating wife? The friendly security guard? The slimy boss? The jealous would-be lover? All that is certain is that, whoever it is, their reasons will in no way justify the laborious manner in which they pursue their quarry. The truck's driver seems to alternate between wanting to mash the hapless Weaver into the tarmac and merely toying with him for no good reason. And the engine of their vehicle has some kind of silent mode which means its victims (and the viewer)never hear it approaching until escape from its path is impossible.

The acting ranges from barely adequate to mind-blowingly awful, and the attempts at mystery and tension are woefully poor. The dialogue is also incredibly dull. Give this one a miss.

(2005) Throttle THRILLER

Co-written and directed by James Seale with yet another rendition of 1971 "Duel" happening in an underground parking garage, when Tom Weaver (Grayson McCouch) went back to retrieve something, he is soon becomes stalked by a trucker to whom viewers are unable to see as a result chasing him driving a bronco with dark windows.

Because the star of the film is barricaded in the parking lot with several floors as well as happened in the middle of the night, and that there are still cars around that I would have smashed every car window to siren every car alarm that I can possibly turn on. That one mad driver can't go after everyone all at the same time.