Review of Detour (1992) by Josh M — 09 Mar 2012

I, and thousands of others, have been obsessed with Detour since we first saw it. This seedy, NO-budget noir flick is chock full of every type of physical and story telling flaw, yet somehow magic lightning is a captured in a cracked, dirty bottle.

Somehow all this film's limitations are tranformed into strengths with the German expressionist vision of iconic expatriate director Edgar Ulmer, who knows how to make an audience care and transfix. Ulmer turns every moment of this story into something allegorical that any of us flawed humans can relate to. For me, the theme of this film is how people who have every opportunity to escape a self destructive situation, choose to stay and let it play out, to our own destruction.

In the story, honky tonk piano player Al Roberts (Tom Neal), broke, is going to follow a singer, Claudia Drake, the woman he loves to LA. Hitchhiking, his driver dies in an accident, Al hides the body and steals the car, never alterting the cops to the tragedy. Going even further down the degradation highway, Al picks up another mysterious hitchhiker, an angry, toxic femme fatale (Ann Savage) with some conection to the dead man. They hole up in a cheap hotel, in mutual self destructive hate, they go down to their horrible doom.

To start with, the cast of limited actors, protagonist Tom Neal and femme fatale Ann Savage, take such a sincere, direct approach to their self inflicted pain. that they are utterly mezerizing. The fact that a fog machine covers up for having zero scenery budget, gives the film a timeless allegorical feel. The flipped negative with the driver's seat consistently on the wrong side gives the film a hallucinogenic, dream quality, the cheesy jazz song 'I Can't Believe That You're In Love With Me' has a haunting melody and is appropriately self depracating I could go on, the film is so full of limitations. It is full of memorable classic film noir lines, though. "There oughtta be a law against dames with claws', etc.

In short, don't miss this unforgettable piece of weird, accidental genius, and note: it's available for free online. It would be great if someone found a good print and released a digitally remastered version, but its numerous scratches and pieces of hair on the lens add to Detour's seedy mystique. I'm looking forward to seeing it again.