Review of Joy Ride (2012) by Josh M — 17 Dec 2009

Sure, okay - you can't talk about Joy Ride (in which a pair of brothers and a young woman are terrorized by a truck driver after a prank gone wrong) without referencing Duel, and sure the plot sounds a little dumb.

And yet, thanks to a smart script (co-written by J.J. Abrams) and slick direction from the always reliable John Dahl, Joy Ride is a pretty great b-movie thriller. There's nothing revolutionary or brilliant here - there's a lot of fakeouts that you'll probably anticipate, and there's more than a few leaps of logic.

But Dahl also brings some great staging to the movie, milking every bit of tension out of the display of a CB radio or the countdown of doors on a hallway. On top of that, you have Walker, Sobieski, and Zahn, all of whom not only are clearly having some fun, but who get a chance to stretch their characters a little bit into something like real people instead of just thriller cliches.

Add to that the stroke of genius in casting Ted Levine as the voice on the radio, and you've got a really fun time. It won't go down in history, but it's far more enjoyable and fun than I really expected.