User reviews

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 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.

This one might be too high concept for its own good. It's part high-tech heist film--or to make that appropriately lighter, the end of Office Space (1999), part adulterous thriller, part slasher/stalker, and part Duel (1971), Christine (1983), Maximum Overdrive (1986)/Trucks (1997), Joy Ride (2001) and Black Cadillac (2003), almost all set in a parking garage to save money.

As inherently silly as that mixture might be, it could work if written, directed and acted carefully enough. With the exception of Dan Mundell as Eddie, who is delightfully campy and over the top--he almost reminded me of Don Knotts as a bizarre Barney Fife, the performances in Throttle are nothing to write home about, but they're good enough. And director James Seale has the mechanics of basic thriller and slasher/stalker scenes down pat. Those two facets make this film almost work. Almost.

What kills it is the script. Unfortunately, Seale was also one of the writers, along with Neil Elman, but the principal cast is also partly to blame, because they should have caught the problems with the script at various stages of making the film. For example, we're shown that the lead character, Tom Weaver (Grayson McCouch) is trapped in an office building's parking garage. His car has been disabled. But this is a parking garage that people are still using, meaning that they're driving their cars out of it--we see people leaving their offices and getting in their cars to go home, and there are one or two security guards on duty. For most of the film, you keep asking yourself, "Okay, why doesn't he just walk down the ramps and out of the garage? How stupid is this guy?" He actually begs people to give him a ride out of the garage, but it never hits him to just simply walk the path that cars would take.

Well, it turns out that there's not only a security "turnpike" bar in the garage, but also a gate that can be closed and not driven through. Also, there's a reason that the security guards might not open or be able to open the gate. But we're not shown either of these facts until almost the end of film--and they wouldn't make much sense until then. But that's bad writing, because we need a reason that Tom can't or wouldn't try to just walk out of the garage right away, near the beginning of the film . . . at least if we're not to conclude that he must have been lobotomized. Additionally, there's a red herring character that got into the garage somehow, so that somewhat negates the reasons that Tom couldn't have just walked out.

This kind of writing plagues the whole film. Another example--a truck is chasing Tom through the garage, trying to run him over, and he frequently just stands in the way, even though the garage is filled with obstacles that a vehicle couldn't easily go around (or through), like other cars and concrete pillars. Tom keeps making inane decisions like that, even at the very end of the film, but I don't want to detail them all. Besides I don't have room. Detailing them all would take many thousands of words. Suffice it to say that Seale and Elman have given us maybe the dumbest protagonist ever.

So aside from enjoying scenes where Seale gets his directorial mechanics right--things work often enough on the "trees" level despite the protagonist's inanity (and heck, some people just are stupid and why can't we show them in films?), and aside from enjoying a creative way to keep the budget way down--at least this isn't another "people running through the woods" film, any enjoyment you get out of Throttle is likely to see just how stupid and ridiculous it can get, and it does tend to keep topping itself in that department. Because of this, it may be worth seeing for fans of "so bad it's good" films, but everyone else should avoid it.

It won't take me long to describe this one. A guy gets chased around a car park by a madman in a black hummer. The end. Whats amazing about this film is how they managed to stretch the running time of the film to 90 minutes. At most this should have been a 20 minute short story.

Ludicrous plot, appalling acting (the bit at the end where the old "madman" starts crying is hilarious"), silly action scenes; this film offers nothing apart from hilarity.

Awful.

By the way, the only reason I have given it 2 out of 10 is because I managed to sit through the whole film.

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 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.

At 11:09, I chuckled at the nod to Duel as the Dennis Weaver-ish, red Valiant driver passes by, staring at Tom.

The likeness is near spot-on, and makes this film fun and campy.

While nothing can top Duel for its sheer visceral horror, this movie gets to play in the same sandbox for a little while, like a little kid dreaming of someday being just like them.

Hi, I just finished watching this movie for the first time. All i can say is WOW! It's brilliant in every way. An excellent gripping plot, superb acting, great stunts and fantastic suspense! The film is clearly based on Spielbergs masterpiece, Duel (1971). It even has the main character from the movie featured in this one as a small cameo! It's full of other links, and the score has similar parts also.

You really get involved in the action with this movie, and you'll be on the edge of your seat all the way!

A fantastic ending, with a great twist tops off the rest of the movie.

Extremely well worth watching!