Joyride
Starring Steve Zahn, Paul Walker, and Leelee Sobieski
Directed by John Dahl

Though it may see to be your run of the mill Hollywood flick appealing to the freewheelin' and free spending teen set, Joyride is an intelligently-made movie relying solely on a killer big rig and the audience imagination for suspense.

Young Lewis (Walker) buys a used car to pick up his girlfriend Venna (Sobieski) on break from college in Colorado. On the drive through Middle America, he picks up his wayward brother Fuller played by Steve Zahn (I guess Fuller was more of a popular name than Billy) from jail. On a cheap CD radio, the two brothers are horsing around with the other truckers by pretending to be riggers and using fake handles such as Black Sheep and Candy Cane. Lewis pretends to be the hot and sexy female trucker Candy Cane and lures an unsuspecting and horny rigger on the CB named Rusty Nail.

At a motel,. Lewis and Fuller plays a cruel practical joke on Rusty by inviting him to a motel room where an old mean prick was staying. The two brothers are in the adjacent room and hear a noise as Rusty comes next door over expecting Candy Cane but instead finds the prick. The next morning, the brothers discover that the old man was savagely beaten. Adding to their troubles is being discovered by Rusty who uses his big rig to scare the guys. Even when he almost pushes them to the brink, he lets go but is not out of the picture. When the two boys pick up Venna, the troubles continue to mount until it builds up to an intense and horrifying denouement all in the name of teaching them a lesson. The ending was not predictable as one expects, adding a little cred to the pix.

The performances were competent at best-no Oscar-award winning script here-and Zahn excels as the neurotic flaky Fuller. This picture reminds one of Spielberg's early film Duel about a killer truck., and the fact that it does not uses gratuitous violence or gore makes a far scarier statement. If there is any lesson to be learned, never play a mean practical joke on a gearjammer. He or she might crash a rig into your room.