THE HITCHER
US, 2007, 84 minutes, Colour.
Sean Bean, Sophia Bush, Zachary Knighton, Neal Mc Donough.
Directed by Dave Meyers.
Once again, the question arises, why a remake, especially of a film that is only twenty years old and still readily available still? The Hitcher was something of a cult movie in the 1980s with a terrifying performance by Rutger Hauer as a murder-minded hitchhiker, C. Thomas Howell as his tormented victim and Jennifer Jason Leigh as someone who tried to help, fatally. If a remake, can it also achieve some classic status?
With this one, not. Not that Sean Bean is not frightening as the malevolent hitchhiker whose life and motives are never explained – except that he enjoys what it feels like to kill. The central couple (Zachary Knighton and Sophia Bush) seem at first just too regular as the students going on a trip for spring break. As they are pursued, fearful, making bad judgments, trying to flee, arrested, framed and, generally desperate, they make something more of their roles and of the terror.
That is what this is, a terror trip with some frights, some ghastly experiences and a gruesome body count. This version reverses the roles of the man and the woman, taking account of the prevalence of the warrior woman in today’s films. It is the man who dies and the woman who finally avenges the deaths. When the hitcher asks her how she feels as she shoots him, ‘What does it feel like?’, he is expecting her to say it is exhilarating. She simply says that she feels nothing. It is the sad combination of satisfaction and emptiness that is achieved by vengeance.
1.The impact of the film? As a terror film? In comparison with the original? The different between the twenty years from one film to the other? Style, treatment?
2.The New Mexico landscapes, the roads, the desert, the rocks and the mountains? The small towns? An authentic feel? Atmospheric score?
3.The title, the focus on John Ryder? The ominous hitcher? The themes of hitchhiking, the dangers?
4.The hitcher himself, Sean Bean’s interpretation? His lack of motivation, no explanation? His sinister attitudes, standing on the road, the two young people escaping from him, his pursuit of them? In the car with the family and his killing them? The pursuit of the two, the devices that he used, his driving, bashing the car? Their being in prison – and his killing the police? At the store and his sinister attitude, especially with the petrol? The final confrontations, with Lieutenant Esteridge in the car? The chases, the pile-ups? His being arrested? His escape with his wrists, the bleeding? His finally being caught? In the truck, the torture of Jim? His further escape – and Grace confronting him, saying she felt nothing, shooting him?
5.Jim, ordinary young man, spring break, going to college to meet Grace, their travelling together? The interactions, the holiday? Easy with each other? The driving, almost hitting John Ryder? Driving away? Grace and her pressuring Jim? At the service station, the assistant giving the information away? The pursuit by Ryder? The catching up, the confrontation, getting the lift? His terrorising them? Pushing him out of the car? His pursuing them with the family – and his killing of the family? Their reaction, trying to warn the family? Discovering the bodies? Their hiding in the mountains? The pursuit in the car? The arrest, their being put in the prison, the interrogations, John Ryder and his blood on the window of the interrogation room? Giving the key to Esteridge that the two young people were innocent? The murders of the police, Jim and Grace escaping? The further pursuits? In the motel, his finding them? His taking Jim, tying him to the truck, driving off? The confrontation with the police, Grace and her final confrontation, shooting him?
6.Esteridge, his investigation, seeing the young people as innocent, the pursuit, the final meeting with Ryder, his being shot? The picture of the other police?
7.The high body count, the mad killer, the hitcher?
8.The plausibility of the plot? A warning for young people? The dangers of hitchhiking? The film’s effect as a terror movie?
