Review of Detour (1992) by Rob S — 24 Jul 2015

As I mentioned to my brother that I had watched this film he informed me that it basically had no budget. This made a great deal of sense to me since I did not see much production value in it - this was noticeable even with it being an older film.

To me Detour seems like a very rushed attempt at trying to make a noir film that works - not necessarily a great noir film, but one that fits the tenants of the genre. We start with Al Roberts as the wanderer who chooses not to be sociable; there is something troubling him, and he conveys this through, what seems to me to be, over-acting.

We get a shift in chronology (a tenant of film noir which I love) and flash back to when he was a pianist and happy with a girlfriend, and this is where his journey begins. He needs to travel west to be with his beloved, but he needs to hitchhike in order to do so.

Roberts meets a man named Haskell and the titular detour to where Roberts needs to go occurs on this journey. He inconveniently ends up in a situation where Haskell dies from what seems to be an accidental hit on his head as he falls out of the car.

Then, because plot, Roberts happens to unknowingly stumble across Haskell's wife at a gas station, and he allows her to ride with him. As a complicated love triangle is almost formed, Haskell's wife blackmails Roberts into helping her squeeze money out of Haskell's car and inheritance by threatening to bring her husband's murder to the police.

Once again, because plot, Roberts accidentally (yes it was an accident with a phone line) strangles Vera and kills her. He becomes the typical unreliable noir narrator at this point since this could have likely gone another way.

All of this was rushed in just over the span of an hour. It is a noir film that has a cohesive plot, but evoked little interest from me. The ending voice-over about his acceptance of getting picked up one day over the image of him actually getting picked up by authorities was intriguing, but not the sort of ending which would rank this film among the likes of Sunset Boulevard or Double Indemnity.