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Yanks and dingos and psychos in the Outback, "pilgrims all," from Melbourne to Perth in the cab of a truck. Slabs of beef are precious cargo in the midst of a butchers' strike, the driver (Stacy Keach) is an American ex-soldier of fortune who quotes Brontë and plays Mozart in his harmonica, his 18-wheeler is adorned with a cartoon porker wielding a cleaver ("Pleased to meat you!"). A pooch nibbling at a suspicious garbage bag kicks off the profusion of Hitchcockisms, the joke is that the rear window is a dusty windshield, or maybe that it sometimes takes a murderer to break the monotony of a long haul. Is the bloke zipping down the freeway the ripper on the loose, or just one of the diversions rattling inside a brain after too many hours on the road? The hitchhiking heiress (Jamie Lee Curtis) is game to find out: "I could go to Disneyland for a little adventure. What I'm looking for is a little excitement." A very resourceful Panavision engineer, Richard Franklin visualizes the trajectory of Everett De Roche's screenplay as a humorous portrait of impotence and resolve, a Borgesian fable of people taking turns chasing each other while living the narratives they've conjured up, and a gorgeous study of pictorial Australian contrasts. The endless desert floor suddenly segues into a seaside cliff, the valley rests in nocturnal blues until a flash of lightning illuminates its contours and dangers. (Pausing at a sweltering outpost, the camera turns 360° beyond arcades and jukeboxes to reveal a mural depicting bloody colonizers and aborigines.) Plenty of breakneck gagwork (runway boats, anchors and ropes figure marvelously in virtuoso set-pieces) breeze toward a gentle note of serendipity, followed by a grisly stinger. With Marion Edward, Grant Page, Thaddeus Smith, and Steve Millichamp.
--- Fernando F. Croce |