Film Review of Roadkill (2001)

Article by Chris Murphy









“You know, with the exception of the seat spring piercing my ass, this ride’s excellent.”

When wreckless slacker Fuller (Steve Zahn) convinces his up-tight younger brother Lewis (Paul Walker) to play a prank on a trucker using their newly aquired CB radio while on a road trip, they incur the wrath of a mysterious & unhinged trucker, ‘Rusty Nails’, who relentlessly stalks them and an innocent friend Venna (Leelee Sobeski) cross country.

While it’s not the most original of concepts, writers Clay Tarver and J.J. Abrams (yes, he of ‘Lost’, ‘Alias’ & ‘Star Trek’ fame) get a lot of mileage out of the concept, colliding the ‘know it all’ youngsters with a ‘good ole boy’ relic from the past. Sure it’s all a bit ridiculous, but damn if the cat and mouse game is not a hell of a lot of fun, effortlessly taping into modern paranoia about life ‘outside the grid’ when the safety nets of modern life are stripped away. Much like J.J. Abrams own films, it’s a breakneck roller coaster ride (maybe that should have been the U.S title, rather than ‘Joy Ride’) that only stops to introduce a few laughs along the way.

Given the troubled history of the movie (extensive re-shoots, nearly 2 years sitting on a shelf unreleased and even a title change or two along the way) you would expect the movie to be a bit of car crash. But director John Dahl (Red Rock West, The Last Seduction) salvages what could easily have been a wreck, delivering a taught, contemporary horror that doesn’t insult the grey matter. While it clearly has a lot in common with previous movies, Dahl delivers a homage rather than a shameless rip off, with knowing nods to Steven Spielberg’s ‘Duel’.

It might seem like brainless popcorn fodder, but Roadkill does raise some interesting questions about the power and cruelty of anonymity, which apparently was just as much of a problem in the days of CB radio as it is with the internet. It just seems to bring out the worst in people, unleashing their inner id, allowing them to torment and bully others safe in the (presumed) knowledge that there will never be any repercussions. Perhaps Roadkill might make people think twice before they start a ‘flame war’ on an internet forum? Probably not, but it’s fun to see what happens when someone does get the opportunity to turn the tables.

Steve Zahn is great as always, turning is his now trademark turn as the goof ball sidekick and stealing the movie away from the rest of the cast. For a low budget B movie, the cast are given a surprising amount of time to develop their characters beyond the usual paper thin archetypes. Given that their predicament is mostly caused by their back-firing callous stunt, toying with a seemingly innocent trucker for kicks, the characters should really be quite unsympathetic, but all the cast manage to invest enough personality into their characters to make them both redeemable and even likeable. Special mention also has to go out to Ted Levine, as the strangely charismatic but unnerving voice of ‘Rusty Nails’, taunting the heroes over the CB radio, who is up there with Kiefer Sutherland in ‘Phone Booth’, as one of the creepiest voices ever crackle over a speaker.

It’s a neat take on an old theme and sure it does covers much of the same ground as previous movies like ‘Breakdown’, Duel and even Deliverance, but John Dahl has crafted a tense little thriller, that’s got more going on under the hood than it first appears while offering breakneck B-movie thrills. Buckle up!



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