Review of The Hitcher

I loved this movie as a kid, this thriller of an idiotic loner kid who's driving across the country and, deciding at the wrong moment to be generous, picks up a suspicious hitchhiker that turns out to be a killer on the lose. Something like 'Roadgames' and later borrowed upon for 'Joy Ride,' the "Hitcher," a psychopathic villain masterfully played by Rutger Hauer chases the kid all over the lonely deserted highway attempting to kill him. And, as usual, no one believes the kid and usually suspect him to be either a babbling weirdo or the murder suspect that the town has been after. Only one girl, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, is willing to believe him, but is soon about to regret it. There are a lot of good brief moments of flinch scares and the usual story line. Maybe if C Thomas Howell, who takes the lead alongside Rutger Hauer and Jennifer Jason Leigh as one of the three primary characters, hadn't hammed up the role so much by being far too wimpy in a situation requiring at least some intelligence and planning ahead (once he figures out that he's being hounded by a madman), it might've been more tolerable when I saw it years later. The filmmakers might have been looking for a naive young man-type to fill the role, but they might've done better with someone who could at least behave a little more aggressively once he figured out that this deranged stalker isn't going to quit and that he's pretty much on his own to put a stop to him.

I think, after watching it with my friends and having them point out how incredibly ridiculous, and most especially, how sometimes dragged out, this movie is, I was swayed to view this movie with a bit more skepticism. But, it being a Rutger Hauer movie, I still watch it when I'm in the mood for the "run or die" variety of thrillers. Still worth seeing.