Highwaymen

One can understand why director Robert Harmon would want to return to the asphalt setting of his cult favorite The Hitcher (1986)--after all, his career has careened off the map since then. But Highwaymen lacks what the earlier picture boasted: a script (by Eric Red) that gave its simple horror story a weirdly powerful existentialist subtext. By contrast, this is a simple revenge tale, the old sagebrush saga about a flawed hero who obsessively hunts down the villain who killed his wife, with the only real differences being that the combatants ride around in souped-up cars rather than on horses, and the bad guy--a serial killer whose weapon of choice is an automobile--has been turned into a half-man, half-machine construct as the result of an earlier crash. Jim Caviziel (The Passion of the Christ) is dour and inexpressive as Rennie, the ex-con who was jailed for injuring his quarry years earlier and now devotes his life to tracking the man down and finishing the job, while Colm Feore thoroughly embarrasses himself by donning an absurd metal outfit and really bad makeup to play Fargo, the evil road warrior. Of course, there's also a girl--Rhona Mitra as Molly, a woman who survived Fargo's most recent attack and now becomes Rennie's unwilling bait to trap him. While there's good stunt work in the many car chases and crashes, and some moody cinematography, this is one road trip you should definitely avoid. Not recommended. (F. Swietek)