This movie kind of blows in that punch-pulling, middle-of-the-road thriller kind of way. It has a few great moments, but it also makes literally zero sense and requires you to suspend logic in ways you may have thought were previously impossible.
To sum things up, Rutger Hauer decides to terrorize poor lil' C. Thomas Howell (stay gold, Ponyboy!) all across the great state of Texas. During this spree of terror, the following things happen:
- Ponyboy brings this whole god damn mess upon himself by voluntarily picking up a hitch hiker. Whoopsadoodle!
- Rutger Hauer, channeling an insane mixture of David Hess, the Terminator, his character Roy Batty from Blade Runner and his own crazy Dutch self speaks almost entirely in non-sequiturs and riddles as he decides to single out Ponyboy to stalk, terrorize and generally make his life a complete hell.
- Ponyboy ditches Hauer several times throughout the movie and has many "PHEW THANK GOODNESS THAT'S OVER! I'LL NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN!" moments, only to have Hauer show up at perfectly opportune times to frame Ponyboy for various criminal acts and killings.
- During a high speed police pursuit, Hauer shoots down a police helicopter with several well placed shots from a simple handgun. Yep.
- The movie hints several times at the ol' WHAT IF THE HITCHER ISN'T REAL AND IT'S BEEN PONY BOY DOING THIS CRAZY SHIT THE WHOLE TIME WHOOOAAAAAAA!!!! angle, which is the only fucking way that this movie could work. This angle would have actually saved the movie, but the writers must have decided that was just wayyyyy too crazy and to go with the more realistic angle that involves shooting down helicopters with handguns and Hauer surviving multiple car crashes and leaping from the back of a moving bus through the windshield of the following truck. Yep, that makes way more sense. Totally.
The good thing is that this movie actually had a budget somehow and so there are several big ass explosions that look great and all the chase scenes are filmed well and include some pretty insane stunts. The directer clearly had a promising future, which is why he spent the last decade making Jesse Stone TV movies with Tom Selleck.
I had to see this because Hauer is one of my favorite actors and he is pretty awesome in this. Just totally batshit crazy and relentless. So there's that. Plus, they made a direct to video sequel with Jake effin Busy AND a shitty remake with fucking Boromir, so you just know it's worth your time.
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