The highway to hell runs straight through a college campus in this compelling thriller about a killer truck. After helping a pretty co-ed out of a nasty domestic situation, Jim Travis gives the girl a lift home. But once on the road, the situation takes a white-knuckle twist as Jim gets into a frightening duel with a crazy truck driver.
The ‘death on wheels’ genre has many entries, but the high bar is, unquestionably, Steven Spielberg’s 1971 TV-Movie Duel. Nearly thirty years later comes Road Rage from Sidney J. Furie, and it’s a long way from that Spielberg classic. This simple-minded tale stars Casper Van Dien, who is actually quite good in the film, and takes place mostly within a moving vehicle. Road Rage is most effective in its opening act before the plot developments become so outlandish it’s laughable. The film loses all of its suspense at the midway point when the identity of the stalking driver behind the tinted windshield is revealed. Here is a movie about obsessive love, a burgeoning relationship, and a seemingly indestructible truck.
Casper Van Dien’s character is so oddly written that you aren’t sure if he’s an escaped felon or a fellow student to damsel in distress, Danielle Brett. Meanwhile, everybody in the film looks about 15 years too old to be playing college kids. Road Rage has decent action photography and a sufficient amount of vehicular wreckage, but the story is so idiotic that it induces rage in the viewer.
Directed by: Sidney J. Furie
Written by: Greg Mellott
Starring: Casper Van Dien, Danielle Brett, Joseph Griffin
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