Brief Primer
Road Games is Rear Window except instead of taking place in an apartment it takes place on the highways of Australia, and instead of starring Jimmy Stewart it stars Stacy Keach. As is historically typical for Australia, someone is kidnapping and chopping up women across the outback. A trucker (Keach) becomes convinced that he's found the killer - the driver of a green van that's travelling along his trucking route. After picking up a hitchhiker (Jamie Lee Curtis) and explaining his theory, things go crazy - Rear Window-in-cars-instead-of-wheelchairs-style.
Before I say anything, I'd just like to remark on how difficult it was to write the brief primer without relying on the phrase "a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse," which I believe appears in every other written document concerning this movie. The entire time I was watching the movie all I could think was "damn, this is a dangerous game of cat and mouse." That said, Road Games is not remarkable - it's a lot like any number of thrillers from the late 70's/early 80's, but it has a number of things going for it, which I'll enumerate:
Road Games is Rear Window except instead of taking place in an apartment it takes place on the highways of Australia, and instead of starring Jimmy Stewart it stars Stacy Keach. As is historically typical for Australia, someone is kidnapping and chopping up women across the outback. A trucker (Keach) becomes convinced that he's found the killer - the driver of a green van that's travelling along his trucking route. After picking up a hitchhiker (Jamie Lee Curtis) and explaining his theory, things go crazy - Rear Window-in-cars-instead-of-wheelchairs-style.
Before I say anything, I'd just like to remark on how difficult it was to write the brief primer without relying on the phrase "a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse," which I believe appears in every other written document concerning this movie. The entire time I was watching the movie all I could think was "damn, this is a dangerous game of cat and mouse." That said, Road Games is not remarkable - it's a lot like any number of thrillers from the late 70's/early 80's, but it has a number of things going for it, which I'll enumerate:
- Stacy "Warden Henry Pope from Prison Break" Keach. This is the second Stacey Keach movie I watched this week (the first being Fat City), and I've decided I like him, officially. He spends a good portion of Road Games talking either to himself or his pet dingo (more on this later), and despite frequently being the only character on screen he's able to carry the (admittedly light) movie largely on his own.
- Jamie "Lee" Curtis. She makes some pretty good jokes (especially at the end of the movie). She should have been introduced earlier though, so she could have had more screen time.
- Australia. This movie takes place in Australia.
- A pet dingo. Stacy Keach's character has one
- Awesome closing shot. I won't ruin it for you, but it's completely the kind of thing one wants at the end of a movie like this.
- It was mentioned frequently in this movie.
Breakdown
Road Games isn't winning any awards, neither on this site nor anywhere else in the universe, and while its ambitions are modest it succeeds at them entirely. It's not Rear Window, but it's like Rear Window, and if you like Rear Window you probably wouldn't dislike Road Games.
5 out of 10
fat city? is that where north street is? do i live there?
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