Popcorn movies are generally reserved for the summer months, but those types of movies are enjoyable year-round. It's not as if you only want to relax and enjoy a movie that's easily digestible between the months of June and August.
"Joy Ride" molds together elements of Steven Spielberg's classic "Duel" as well as the Kurt Russell flick "Breakdown," and delivers solid suspense and a surprising amount of laughs. As long as you don't mind the absence of logic, it lives up to its title.
Rising star Paul Walker ("The Fast and the Furious") stars as Lewis Thomas, a college student and all-around do-gooder planning a trip east to Denver to pick up Venna (Leelee Sobieski), a lifelong friend on which he has a major crush.
Lewis buys an old car and later has a CB installed in it for his road trip. Along the way he also picks up his screw up brother Fuller (Steve Zahn) in jail. Fuller is always getting into trouble and Lewis is always getting him out of it.
It's a long drive to Denver, and boredom soon sets in. Fuller starts playing with the CB player and decides it would be funny to play pranks on truckers. He coaxes Lewis into joining him, and since he is adept at impersonating a female, Lewis pretends to be a woman and talks a trucker calling himself "Rusty Nail" into a meeting.
Lewis and Fuller end up staying in a motel in the middle of nowhere. Lewis instructs the man to go to the room next to theirs. The brothers wait patiently and listen closely. After Rusty Nail arrives, they hear what sounds like a struggle, get scared, and go to bed, hoping it was all nothing.
But in the morning, the cops are crawling all over the place. Turns out the man staying in the room next to theirs was murdered. His jaw ripped right off. Rusty Nail is not happy, and he begins to play mind games with Lewis and Fuller, tormenting them with his CB and his truck. Eventually, Venna gets involved as well.
What could have been a cheesy rip off of other far better movies actually turns out to be pretty good. It won't win any awards, but "Joy Ride" is fast-paced, expertly made and tense.
A lot of the credit goes to director John Dahl ("The Last Seduction") and his team of editors. They have crafted a solid thriller that is perfectly paced and efficient. Dahl is an expert when it comes to staging suspense and, along with cinematographer Jeff Jur, he creates an ideal atmosphere with the barren locations.
All three leads give serviceable performances, but Zahn is the standout here. He gets the best lines and is hysterically funny at times. The humor is well balanced with the drama and helps the viewer not take the movie too seriously. It's meant to be fun and not analyzed intensely.
Throw in a minor shock of an ending, and "Joy Ride" is a solid little thriller that delivers the goods. You won't want to rush back and see it again and come next month you may forget it entirely, but this is pure mindless fun.
Grade: B
"Joy Ride" opened at theatres everywhere on Fri., Oct. 5. Click here for showtimes.
