Joy Ride (2001)
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I was actually quite surprised by this movie. I didn't expect much, let alone actually enjoy the film, but I did. I heard a lot of mixed reviews and I wasn't quite sure what to expect considering it didn't do all too well at the box office. That apparently didn't stop me from seeing it though. When I first saw the trailer for the film, I thought they showed way too much, but after seeing the movie I realized that there were a lot of good scenes they didn’t show. There are also a lot of cut scenes. This movie is said to have 3 different endings. Why did John choose the ending he did is beyond me, because I thought the ending was a little slow.
The movie gets rolling from the start and it doesn't take long before things start to get a little tense. Leelee's character wasn't in the movie as much as I thought she'd be. It was mainly just focused on the two brothers and the mysterious trucker with the handle, Rusty Nails. I thought the plot was pretty good, even though it wasn't very original. The Rusty Nails character pretty much stayed mysterious through the whole film. They showed a little bit of him towards the end. I expected the movie to lose some of the suspense that it had around the beginning, but it had a lot from start to finish and I was rather surprised. That's what I really enjoyed about the movie and that's why I decided to give the movie a 7-rating. I would have given it a higher rating if the ending was better and if there were good scares. There really weren't any scares in the movie, just a lot of tense scenes.
There wasn't any real gore except for a few scenes. The movie was more performance and suspense driven than anything. To me the film was like an intelligent slasher, where there's a killer trucker on the loose, but it's backed behind a pretty decent plot and little-to-no deaths. I guess we can expect to catch all the cut scenes and alternate endings on the DVD. I might get it to just check what they cut out. I'd like to see what other endings director, John Dahl, gave up. Also, I won’t be surprised if there will be a Joyride 2.
A surprisingly good and suspenseful film. Worth a check.