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1981’s Richard Franklin-directed “Road Games” stars Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis in a taut, Hitchcockian thriller. With callbacks to the likes of “Rear Window,” its truck-based setting helps “Road Games” emerge from the pack as a fresh suspense film.
Truck driver Patrick Quid (Keach) works in the land down under. Pulling into a hotel for the night, he notices a man in a green van check in alongside a female hitchhiker he passed earlier. Since the trucking company Quid is employed by forbids picking up passengers, Patrick neglected to give the hitchhiker a ride. Unfortunately, the man in the green van takes the last hotel room, and a disgruntled Quid stays the night in his rig snuggled up with his faithful pet dingo, basked in the taunting “No vacancy” sign.
The next morning, Quid awakens early to pick up a load of meat. While his dingo vigorously sniffs at a garbage bag outside the motel, Patrick notices the green van driver peering out from behind the curtain. Suspicious, Quid heads out to pick up his shipment of pork from Universal Meats before traveling to Perth. Along the way, Quid encounters a variety of memorable characters. There’s a family loaded in a station wagon complete with a nagging wife, a car chock full of sports balls, a man timidly towing a sailboat, and a constantly achoo-ing motorcyclist charmingly nicknamed sneezy rider.
While trucking, Quid enjoys concocting backstories for the various characters he witnesses on while driving. Despite company regulations forbidding the pick up of passengers, when the nagging wife is left behind by her husband, Patrick gives her a ride. The pair play a game of what’s my line, but frivolity turns serious when Quid overhears a radio bulletin about a series of grisly murders and suspects that the green van driver may be responsible. Later, Quid picks up hitchhiker Pamela (Jamie Lee Curtis), who he nicknames Hitch. Confiding his theory that the van driver is actually a serial killer, the two attempt to prove his guilt.
“Road Games” is a spectacular Hitchockian thriller. It begins much like “Rear Window,” with Quid practicing voyeurism. And, as in Alfred Hitchock’s classic Jimmy Stewart-starring “Rear Window,” this spying doesn’t go unrewarded. But Richard Franklin’s 1981 “Road Games” quickly subverts this concept by taking the mystery for a spin in a sprawling, Australian landscape rather than restricting it to the confines of a cramped bedroom. Furthermore, fitting with the Hitchcock formula, “Road Games” balances its suspense with ample humor. Quid himself is an amiable fellow. As he corrects, “just because I drive a truck does not make me a truck driver.” He’s an unconventional character, prone to quoting Keats and manufacturing fictitious backstories for fellow road warriors. Patrick and Pamela have loads of chemistry, providing witty banter which propels much of the movie.
The quirky characters lend “Road Games” a dreamlike quality. There’s a station wagon packed with toy sports balls, a cautious driver hauling a sailboat, an allergy-prone motorcycle biker, and a family crammed into a car. Each of them is cartoonishly exaggerated, infusing a comedic element similar to the slapstick qualities often found in Hitchock thrillers. As with 1972’s Alfred Hitchcock-directed “Frenzy,” the more Quid seeks to prove that the green van driver is a serial murder, the guiltier Patrick himself appears. It’s a neat dynamic that maintains an anxious environment during the entirety of the flick.
A subplot follows a butcher’s strike. Quid remains the sole trucker transporting bacon throughout the Outback. It’s revealed through radio broadcasts, and a few signs. Unfortunately, this storyarc feels underdeveloped. Particularly because of the emphasis on the strike, it’s presented as an important plot point. Still, clever misdirection creates a conspiratorial quality which makes “Road Games” an edge-of-your-seat thriller until its finale. A charming production with a marvelous pairing of Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis, 1981’s “Road Games” will keep your heart racing for a fun, fantastical ride.
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