Road Games (1981) Back in ancient ages, as a video store movie buyer, I loved stocking stores with movies like this.....
Unheralded sleepers, these surprising little gems became steady money makers and perfect for store employees to recommend to customers when all the the copies of the big hits were rented out for the night.....
This one came out of Australia, but fronted by two familiar American actors, Stacy Keach and the then new reigning 'scream queen' herself, Jamie Lee Curtis......(giving the film an immediate higher profile, much like other American actors popping up in spaghetti westerns.....)
And the set-up was striking, a Hitchcock homage transported to the long, lonely, but stunningly scenic roads of southern Australia.
Essentially a highway bound "Rear Window", the film literally hits the road running. A cat-and-mouse, hunter-and quarry game ensues between long distance trucker Pat Quid (Keach) and a serial killer given to carving up girl hitchhikers into pieces after raping them.
And Pat's far from a blue collar, monosyllabic Mad Max type of trucker. On the contrary, he's a gabby, loquacious sort, spouting a constant monologue filled with classic poetry quotes and witty asides about the drivers he passes on the road. (And it's fun watching Keach enjoy himself as this wildly overqualified soldier-of-fortune, tossing off his highway bon mots as if auditioning for a comedy club stand-up spot.)
But soon the creepy serial killer guy in the dark green van catches Pat's eye and the off-and-on road duel in on. Not much in Pat's favor though.......one way or another, he manages to run afoul of every driver he encounters, which leads just about everyone in the cast to either fear or dislike him enough to suspect him of the killings. (His faithful pet dingo, Boswell, also does little to endear him to the populace, since hunting season on dingos goes year 'round.)
He does pick up an ally in a young girl hitchhiker (Curtis) whom he dubs "Hitch"......(cue the Hitchcock homage footnote), but their plans to corner and trap the killer go.....uh....you might say horribly awry.
And that at last brings us to the film's bravura finale, a rather fresh, inventive action-suspense sequence orchestrated to perfection by director Richard Franklin......a showdown that places Pat and his massive 18-wheeler stuck in a narrow alley, with a police car behind him and the maniacal killer in front of him. Holy Smokey And The Bandit!
A modest little thriller, but in its own way, "Road Games" offers up as many laughs and thrills that you'd find in any Huuuuuuggggge major-budgeted thriller. If if the big big movies don't appeal to you tonight, pretend you're in a 1981 video store and check it out. 4 stars (****)
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