Four months after the release of ‘The Fast and The Furious‘ made him a star, Paul Walker was back on the big screen in another car-themed movie’Joy Ride‘ a buddy road-movie that veers into a thriller.
The story begins with 28-year-old Paul Walker playing college freshman Lewis. He spends his nights up late on the phone with his old high-school crush, Venna (Leelee Sobieski). Lewis is trapped in the dreaded ‘friend zone’ but when Venna says she wants to go visit her family in Texas, Lewis sees an opportunity. He promptly cashes in the plane ticket his mom bought him, buys a 1971 Chrysler Newport 2-door coupe, and offers to to drive to Colorado to pick up the pretty ‘girl next door’ and drive her home to Texas.
While out on the first leg of his cross-country journey, Lewis’ plan gets derailed when he has to make a pit-stop in Utah to bail-out his doofus brother, Fuller (Steve Zahn) who’s been arrested again. This sets up the buddy road-trip across the country, and the eventual love triangle between the two young men and the pretty blonde. Fuller gets an old-school CB radio installed on the Newport to help avoid police speed traps on the highway. But Fuller is a doofus, and soon starts using the CB to make crank calls to lonely truckers.
This is where it all goes so wrong. Fuller goads his little brother Lewis into pretending to be a female trucker with the handle Candy Cane. They attract the attention of trucker Rusty Nail, who is enticed by the gentle voice, and sexy description Lewis gives of his pretend female self. The boys even invite the trucker to their motel room (actually, to the room next door) and laugh as the trucker humiliates himself knocking on a stranger’s door, thinking he’s about to get lucky.
Jeepers creepers, did the brothers pick the wrong guy to mess with! The next morning, the boys learn that Rusty Nail has practically killed the man in the next room. And now that he’s seen the CB antenna on their Newport, Rusty Nail knows who they are… and wants revenge. From this point ‘Joy Ride‘ turns into an action/suspense film, as the killer in the big rig chases the boys. The villain remains unseen in the cab of his 1985 Peterbilt 359 EXHD truck. In many ways ‘Joy Ride‘ owes a debt to the 1971 movie ‘Duel‘ where a maniac trucker chases down the terrified protagonist.
But this film goes so much further. The evil trucker is almost omnipotent, watching the brothers every move, even phoning them in their motel room to frighten them. When the brothers eventually pick up Venna, evil Rusty Nail turns his sights on her, saying she looks just like the description of Candy Cane which Lewis gave earlier. The terrified trio try to run, but Rusty Nail isn’t far behind.
Adding to the mood of the film is the excellent cinematography, which creates a sense of isolation in the sparsely populated desert filled with the occasional cheap motel or truck stops. There’s nowhere to hide that the evil trucker won’t find them. And no matter how fast that Chrysler’s big-block 383 cubic inch V8 can go, Rusty Nail is already two step ahead with his evil plans. The glowing green lights on the CB radio an ever-present reminder of danger, much like the evil HAL 9000 computer in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey‘ who’s always watching, always listening, always plotting.
The ending is terrifying, and apparently the least disturbing of the four endings the director shot.
Candy Cane… LOL. I do remember this movie. And I remember I liked it a lot. Good one, Chris.
Thanks brother. I can’t believe I never saw it back in the day!
But the evil voice guy in the truck was in Fast and Furious with Paul Walker just months earlier.