Joyride

This movie, unfortunately, brings up some of where I grew up. Basically we have some late teens or early twenties on road trip. ( The actors are older than that but I think that's what they're trying to represent).

So they steal cars and wreck them. Also they had a hostage situation but it ended up with the girl being okay as a matter of fact she kind of joined them.

I grew up in a low rent place and the people in this movie reminded me of the people I grew up with. Not much morals. But steal a few things. Even the adults where I grew up stole things or cheated people. Yeah I grew up in a low rent town in Upstate New York and that's what this movie reminded me of.

Also they wrecked a couple of nice cars including a '68 Dodge Charger and what I believe is a 68 Mercury Cougar. Of course they're all classics today. Just a one-time watch for me.

"Joyride" captures the malaise of the 70's so much better than many films of the era. Think of it as a perfect antidote to "Saturday Night Fever" on many levels. Watch for the Pacific Northwest cinematic quirkiness that comes through later in everything from "Twin Peaks" to "Napoleon Dynamite" and many more. There are many northwest talents that went on to other endeavors in this movie as well - surprising it has not been celebrated a bit more for that. I recommend it highly to college sociology students and Melanie Griffith groupies (get a life!). Truth be told, I've always held a candle for Anne Lockhart. We could have been very happy together, the restraining order was so uncool. Psyche! She's great.

I found this watchable in the sense that it passed the time. As for if it had an entertaining story and engaging character, uh-uh. It's hard to sympathize with these youths because they seem too arrogant, and also unbelievably naive at times. As for the story, it doesn't seem to know where it's going. First we see the youths struggle, then we see them get involved with a big plan, then their subsequent escape, then... well, the movie after that point has even less of a clue what to do. To top it off, there's no real ending. The "joy" comes from the producers who took ticket-buyers on a "ride" - though I doubt this sold many tickets.

(1977) Joyride DRAMA/ ADVENTURE

Co-written and directed by Joseph Ruben that has three friends of Scott (Desi Arnaz Jr.), Susie (Melanie Griffith) and John Lerner (Robert Carradine) quitting their current jobs to drive up to Alaska to purchase themselves their own fish boat. And of course, things does not go accordingly, as there car got broken into, leaving them with much money, forcing them to seek other means of employment at the pipeline. And when that did not work, forced them to do things they would not necessarily do such as rob the pipeline office, before abducting an employer, Cindy Young (Anne Lockhart) to which Scott coincidentally had met before. At this point, viewers have no idea how they are going to end up, or whether they are going to remain with each other at all. In other words, this is an exploitation movie as it has nudity and action to robbery in the most unusual of circumstances as each event or choice they turn to is unexpected.

As I watch this movie, it's one of those movies where the characters have a lot of good intentions but appear to experience a lot of bad luck, such as by the time they arrive to Alaska, their car gets broken into with their hard earned money left in the car, before their own boss, Frank Sanders (Tom Ligon) was caught stealing from the pipeline company, and he retaliates by forcing them to quit the jobs he landed for them after Scott wanted to do the right thing. And if that wasn't enough, Scott gets physically assaulted by the pipeline workers from orders by Frank Sanders. Placing them with one unfortunate circumstance after the next, motivating them into a situation to steal their groceries from a super market as they do not get paid enough, rigging cars, while Susie continues to get harassed by her employer while waitressing at a diner. Yep, that was what it was like during the 1970's and more no matter what city they reside to. In other words, they are the anti-hero's of society itself, and put into circumstances they are incapable to foresee themselves which is why I was rooting for them until the very end. As I liked the way the movie had ended unlike other films that consist of a similar theme, such as "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" for instance. This movie gets 70%.

This is a difficult video to find which is just as well. I had searched for 15 years wanting to view the film I saw in 1977 with a soundtrack from ELO (Electric Light Orchestra). When I recently found a video store that specializes in obscure videos, I rented it and Vestron Video (now out of business) had released this road-pic as "Joyride-special video edition"...now that sounded to me like it was going to better than the original. What it meant was that they had removed all of the ELO music from the soundtrack, then cheaply dubbed a new soundtrack. The story in a word is boring. It would only be worth renting if (like me) you wanted to hear the ELO soundtrack again. It was interesting to see Melanie Griffith and Robert Carradine in their younger days. The clerk at the video store said this title hadn't been rented in five years!

HOWEVER, a few years later....I have found a copy of the video (thanks to ebay)that was intact with the ORIGINAL soundtrack as released on video in the U.K. Seeing the movie again with its original soundtrack made it a pleasure.