Movie Trailers and such

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Duel -- 1971 -- PG

Gives road rage a whole new fearful meaning. This film follows a salesman as he goes to try a get an account. He takes a road trip and on the way, he passes an old ugly truck. Well, the truck passes him and then hits the brakes. The film is off.

This film equates to one really long suspenseful chase between the salesman and the truck (who is, incidentally, the antagoinst of the moive, not the driver of the truck). This does what movies do best: take a mundane everyday situation and blow it completely out of proportion, and it does it well.

Some minor complaints I had were quelled for the most part. I thought he should call the poice from the beginning, and thank the Lord the character touched upon the idea, but explained why he couldn't at the time. His later attempts to contact authorities were stifled by the truck's presence.

My only other possible complaint was that the whole thing could have been stopped if the guy just went back home. The truck was always waiting ahead of him on the road, so a simple move of turning around and kissing the account good-bye (or at least delivering a solid reason why he didn't show) would have been what I'd've done if I were being chased by a murderous truck. The account was made out to be very, very important, which is probably why he kept going.

This aside, for Spielberg's directoral debut, it was really good. It had a lot of suspense and kept me watching a truck and a car driving down a road for the 90 miute run time...and that is really saying something.

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