I Feel Nothing (The Hitcher (DVD))

Name: plipplop

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Product:	The Hitcher (DVD)
Date:	19/06/07 (168 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some good action and likeable leads

Disadvantages: Pointless remake that brings nothing new to the table

When producer Michael Bay co-founded the Platinum Dunes production company, his mission statement was relatively simple. The intention was to make horror movies, more often than not remakes of classics, with a production budget never to exceed $20 million. So far, that’s pretty much what they’ve done. The remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was good (an improvement on the original, as far as I’m concerned) and The Amityville Horror remake was a decent enough movie too.

The Hitcher is the latest Platinum Dunes production effort and follows the pattern through and through. The 1986 original is a bit of a cult horror movie (much like Amityville and Texas Chainsaw) but this time round the plot line treads an almost identical path to the original.

College students Grace and Jim are travelling across the desert in Jim’s car, on their way to meet Grace’s sorority sisters. As the night draws in, a torrential down pour confronts them and as they drive along the darkened highways, they narrowly avoid a man standing in the road, apparently trying to hitch a lift. With Grace nervous about taking on a stranger, Jim decides not to pick up the hitchhiker, and the couple continues on the journey. When they stop at a service station to get some refreshments, Grace nips to the bathroom whilst Jim tends to the car. A truck pulls up and to Jim’s horror, the hitchhiker climbs down from the cab. Placed in an awkward position, Jim reluctantly agrees to take the hitcher to the nearby motel and the three of them eventually set off.

Did nobody ever tell them not to talk to strangers, let alone pick them up?

I’m not sure that I would describe The Hitcher as an out and out horror film. It’s more an action / horror / thriller really, revolving around the premise that Grace and Jim are playing cat and mouse with their psychopathic hitchhiker. The hitchhiker in question (John Ryder) is a strange fellow, with no apparent purpose other than to cause death and mayhem and it’s pretty unfortunate for Grace and Jim that they get caught up in things. But without that, we wouldn’t have a film, would we?

Films like The Hitcher rely on some fairly safe genre conventions. Mobile phones will have no signal; passers by will ignore your plight; the police are stupid; the bad guy can do pretty much anything he wants and get away with it. The Hitcher is stuffed full of them and if you’re the kind of viewer who has to question such things, don’t even bother with this one. An element of suspension of belief must be applied to even tolerate The Hitcher.

On the positive side, director Dave Meyers shows premise for the genre. Having previously only directed music movies, The Hitcher provides Meyers with an opportunity to flex his directorial muscles and he does it fairly well. The film’s opening thirty minutes or so show the most promise, with Meyers able to play around with audience’s emotions before they tire of the implausible story line. He knows how to make us jump (although it must be said that he bypasses subtlety in the process) and he knows how to get the adrenaline going for sure, with plenty for the action junkies to enjoy. A face-off between Ryder and several police cars / helicopters is rigorously entertaining if not rather silly, for example.

The leading couple (played by TV favourites Sophia Bush and Zachary Knighton) are a very likeable couple. Bush is absolutely gorgeous (the director wastes no opportunity to demonstrate this) and as her ordeal worsens, her wide-eyed terror is convincing enough for us to like her. Knighton’s sensitive touch makes something of a change for a leading “jock” and it always feels as though there is a genuine affection between the two, making their ordeal all the more shocking.

The loose cannon of the peace is John Ryder, with Sean Bean seeming rather bored with the whole thing and playing it all by numbers. We learn very little of Ryder. Is he some kind of supernatural figure, representative of a darker power, or is he just some kind of nut case? What exactly does he want or is it simply the case that he wants nothing but trouble? These are valid questions that most semi-intelligent audience members will want to ask, but will doubtlessly go unanswered. The original was always presented as an existentialist tale but the deluge of blood and bullets in the remake lacks any kind of refinement to help shape this and it all ends up a little messy.

Although Meyers shows promise for the future, even he seems a little unsure what he's trying to do. Sure, the film boasts an excellent soundtrack - but this isn't supposed to be a music video. The remake's only real diversion from the original is a twist in the tail (tale?) that comes towards the end that throws in a spot of role reversal. Sadly, it isn’t shocking or meaningful enough to have any real impact, instead presenting us with one too many ridiculous scenarios for us to really care any more.

And really, this is the problem with The Hitcher. It just doesn’t inspire anything. By retracing the original so closely, it yields virtually no surprises and instead simply encourages the fan boys to compare it to the original. Whilst Sean Bean has never really struck me as a superlative actor, even he seems wasted here and the project lacks cohesion and real purpose. Indeed, the film’s closing line is likely to be the most inspirational comment of the whole piece.

I feel nothing.

Summary: Dunes' newest effort leaves much to be desired