The Hitcher

Never pick up strangers.

By Linda Winsh-Bolard

A young couple, Grace Andrews (Sophia Bush) and Jim Halsey (Zachary Knighton), on Spring break from the university takes off to see the western lakes. It is a long drive, they are fully packed, relaxed and looking forward to it.

As the day changes to night ( Hollywood always gives you clues) it starts raining over New Mexico. And in the dark, compounded by the rain and a moment of inattention, they almost hit a man standing in the middle of the road whose car apparently died in the torrential waters.

Jim is worried and considers going back to see if the guy is OK, or if he needs help. Grace is against it, why did the idiot stand in the middle of the road anyway, and he was not harmed, and you should never pick up hitchhikers. They drive on until they come to a small gas station where they plan on getting snacks, gas and restrooms.

Grace is in the restroom, when the Hitchhiker comes in driven by a truck and asks for a ride. With the clerk watching, Jim gives in and they give the guy a ride. It doesn't take long for them to be uncomfortable with John Ryder (Sean Bean), nor it takes long before he pulls a knife and tries to terrorize them. Acting in nice concord Jim speeds up, Grace opens the passenger's door and Jim pushes the hitcher out. Off they go(drive). Later, while trying to call the police, they realize that their cell phone got lost in the struggle.

You'd imagine that a guy pushed out of speeding vehicle would die, you'd be wrong. John Ryder lives on unharmed and goes on killing. His next victims are a family in an old station wagon with "Jesus loves you" sticker on the back bumper; they gave him a ride.

Jim and Grace try to warn the family by driving up, screaming at them and waving their arms. They get run off the road by a truck and nobody stops to see if they lived. Walking down the road they find the station wagon full of bodies with the Dad still barely breathing. They step on it trying to get him to the hospital. Their effort gets them arrested on suspicion of murder.

Then the hitcher rides in again. By killing all the personnel of the poorly manned sheriff's office, he actually helps them to escape. Up to the mountains they run (just try that in the heat of that part of NM) while on the scene arrives an Albuquerque cop. Lieutenant Esterbridge (Neal McDonough) is smart enough to realize there is a third person involved, smart enough to ask for a chopper to scan the landscape, but cannot prevent further chases and further murders.

Consequent chase gets very unlikely and very bloody. It gives the Hitcher not only beaten Trans Am that outruns the cop's cars, but also astounding survival ability and a personal invisible radar that picks up on the sites of the young couple as he pursues them.

Why does he want them? What is it he wants? Grace and Jim asked him repeatedly, but there is no real answer. The only thing the Hitcher said was: I want to die, that is also what he makes his victims to say before he kills them.

We never find out who he was, why he is killing, or what does he want.

At the very end, already shot twice by high powered rifle, he tells his assassin: It does feel good, doesn't it? And that is the entire explanation for his killings. As for his supernatural abilities, these are left to you imagination.

On the plus side it got Sean Bean, one of the less known British actors who easily outranks Clive Owens in his acting ability. Always contained, always relaxed, always believable, he does the best he can with a character that rides from nowhere to nowhere. It also has New Mexico landscape, which is spectacular, and a cameraman who knows it and shows it. On the average side it gets the rest of the cast, possibly with the exception of Neal McDonough in the role of Lieutenant Esterbridge who is quite good.

On the minus side it strains anybody's ability to believe in what they are seeing. Often filmed in long shots, with relatively slow editing that picks up only when killing gets into it( I presume should have given a contrast), it gives plenty of time to ponder what is likely to happen next, and it always does happen, as well as all the improbabilities involved in the plot. It is predictable and that makes it boring. It's a remake gutted of original suspense and tension between two male loners, that added skimpy clad female and nothing else, and it never got better than expected.

Directed by Dave Meyers. Screenplay by Jake Wade Wall, Eric Bernt based on the film written by Eric Red, Director of Cinematography: James Hawkinson..