Joy Ride

Dahl's surprisingly effective mad trucker thriller, his most enjoyable offering since The Last Seduction, is a mesh of quotations from classics like Duel and The Hitcher. Lewis (Walker) is a college freshman whose plans to drive across the US with almost girlfriend Venna (Sobieski) are scuppered when he has to bail out his troublemaking brother Fuller (Zahn), who then invites himself along for the ride. At Fuller's suggestion, the duo buy an old CB radio and amuse themselves en route to Venna's by playing a prank on a trucker, 'Rusty Nail' (Kimbrough), inviting him in a faux-female voice to meet them at a roadside motel. In the film's finest moment, Mr Nail makes the extent of his anger at being duped crunchingly clear to the unwitting resident of their rendez-vous room, while the boys cower next door and the camera fixes blankly on a kitsch painting gracing the thin partition wall. Such Hitchcockian panache is, however, in short supply. Never mind Roadkill - 'Overkill' would make a more fitting title, as Rusty wreaks his revenge, and set piece is piled on implausible set piece.