The Hitcher - La lunga strada della paura

A normal ordinary guy picks up a stranger in the middle of nowhere so that he could drive awake. Little does he know that he's going into a road trip from hell...

Rutger Hauer give what I think is his best performance. Sure, there was that menacing Replicant in Blade Runner, but this one overshoots it by a long shot. He delivers a performance so good, that you'll find it difficult to question whether his character is believable or unbelievable.

C. Thomas Howell, one one of the kids in Steven Spielberg's ET, plays the protagonist. Here, he faces every driver's worst nightmare imaginable, and he delivers it with realism. Howell also demonstrates how an ordinary teenager can change into a helpless being who is caught between a psychopathic game of cat-and-mouse set by a brutal man hell-bent on killing him.

The nice New Mexico cinematography of which the film was filmed and set gives tranquility to the picture and makes the film looks good while delivering the thrills. Strongly supporting this topic is composer Mark Isham's gritty yet beautiful score. It;s just perfect for this kind of movie.

The action sequences are handled very nicely here. We got a petrol station blowing up, an intense police car chase, and one of the greatest endings in cinematic history. Period.

The Hitcher (1986) is one of the first films I have ever watched, and I still cherish it to this day. The 2007 remake, or rather, reDO, is a shallow and uninspiring music-videoish piece of crud that will only be liked by the MTV generation, but never the fans of the original. Why was it remade, we will never know.

Overall, it is an excellent movie and one of the best thrillers ever made. Pick this one up, guys, it's worth it.

8/10

One wonders if the filmmakers knew what kind of a film they wanted to make. This movie starts out promising, with C. Thomas Howell as a kid driving across the great dusty southwest (beautifully and desolately photographed and eerie in a Stephen King-esque sort of way) on his way to California, only to be inexplicably pursued by a homicidal maniac, played with cold glee by the chilly-eyed Rutger Hauer. There is a promise here of a psychological thriller a la Hitchcock, with Hauer seeming to have a near-supernatural and truly menacing presence. There is something inhuman and demonic about him, though it's hard to put your finger on precisely what. The relationship (yes, one can call it that) that develops between Hauer and Howell is interesting and deeply disturbing. Behind the enmity, they seem to have some truly dysfunctional need for each other, which makes the cat-and-mouse game all the more suspenseful. Unfortunately, somewhere around the middle of the movie, it degenerates into just another shoot-em-up action flick and Hauer's character seems silly rather than demonic, while Howell is just annoying. After about a half hour of this, I just wanted both of them to die. I didn't care anymore. Had the filmmakers known how to write (and direct) a satisfying, appropriate conclusion to the very suspenseful first half, this could have been a great movie. Instead, it falls on its face--and is all the more disappointing because we expected something better.

Murder Spree Road Flick. Contains many fairly stupid moments ("plot holes") and yet remains gripping throughout its length. Graphic, stunning violence; be warned.

Howell is slightly vapid yet pretty and his relations with Rutger Hauer verge on the homo-erotic. Hauer is a near-perfect villain, demonstrating the steely resolve and psychological impenetrability that have made him a favorite "bad guy" in other films.

A great movie for the paranoid who wish to feed their fantasies. Owes something to Spielberg's "Duel" but remains its own film. Relatively spare visual style well-suited to the theme. Recommended, but not for the faint of heart.

Rutger Hauer owns The Hitcher. He hitches a ride with C Thomas Howell and he soon regrets his goodwill. People are killed along the way and the good Samaritan finds himself in deep doo doo. JJ Leigh appears as a waitress who gets tied up with the events. Howell spirals into Dante's Inferno with cops on the chase. Although farfetched I was entertained by the movie.

This is just a perfectly executed 80s action/thriller/horror film. Rutger Hauer owns his role and is genuinely terrifying. Ignore the bad reviews, this is a masterpiece!