REVIEW – The Hitcher

Published on: 13th January, 2010

REVIEW - The Hitcher  | read this item

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What Steven Spielberg’s Duel did for driving through the desert, Robert Harmon’s The Hitcher did for picking up strangers. Taking elements from road movies, slashers and even The Terminator, Rutger Hauer’s crazed antagonist was an unstoppable killing machine, intent on challenging the young hero to defend himself and defeat him. Supposedly inspired by The Doors track Riders on the Storm (which contained the lyrics ‘There’s a killer on the road, his brain is squirming like a toad, take a long holiday, let your children play, if you give this man a ride sweet family will die,’ something that is echoed during one scene when the hero finds the aftermath of Hauer’s journey with a family), The Hitcher portrayed its villain as an emotionless monster, whose motives for his violence is an attempt to make the young man fight back. During the opening scene, when he asks Hauer what he wants, his response is ‘I want you to stop me.’

Having been paid to drive a car from Chicago to San Diego, Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) begins to fall asleep at the wheel. Noticing a figure thumbing for a ride in the rain, he decides the company should keep him awake. The stranger identifies himself as John Ryder (Hauer), a middle aged man who immediately intimidates Jim, even threatening to kill him. When Jim manages to kick him out of the car he thinks the ordeal is over, but the following morning he sees Ryder travelling with a family. After trying to clear his name of the murders with the police, Jim is then stalked by Ryder, who makes no attempt to kill him but instead pushes him as far as he can. But when kindhearted waitress Nash (Jennifer Jason Leigh) makes the mistake of helping Jim, she becomes Ryder’s only leverage against him, forcing him to finally stand up for himself.

Taking its cue from the endless slew of slasher films that had filled the drive-ins just a few years earlier, The Hitcher replaces the mask killer with one who has no identity. Hauer’s character is referred to as John Ryder but the police are unsure if that is even his real name, and no details of him past are ever revealed. In some respects, Ryder is much like the shark in Jaws, intent on catching its prey at all costs, whilst Jim tries his best to stop more innocent being slaughtered. The emptiness of the desert and the lack of police officers in the local station further emphasize how alone Jim is and how he can rely on no one but himself. He must come of age and become a man if he is to survive. Whilst he spends the majority of the movie merely running from Ryder, once Nash becomes a casualty he instead hunts down Ryder to claim his revenge. Essentially, Ryder finally gets what he asked for in the beginning and is the true winner (Davind Fincher tried something similar with his serial killer flickSe7en).

Hauer had already played a robot in Ridley Scott’s science fiction classic Blade Runner and had portrayed a variety of sleazy roles, and in many ways Ryder would be a combination of these. His relentless pursuit of Jim is reminiscent of Yul Brynner’s android gunslinger in Westworld, whilst his siege on the police station echoes Arnold Schwarzenegger’s massacre in The Terminator. Ryder is by far Hauer’s most effective role: highly intelligent yet calculating and psychotic. Without saying anything, he manages to unnerve the viewer and once he begins to talk his words are savage and to the point. Although there is little dialogue for Ryder, it is Hauer’s gift for menacing gestures and his sinister eyes that reveal his true intentions, even before he tells Jim that he is a killer.

Howell as Jim is also an interesting performance, beginning the story as an insecure and non-violent kid before being pushed by Ryder to become a monster himself. The focus of the movie is his character’s transition from hunted to hunter, with the death of Nash being the catalyst that finally makes his give into Ryder’s game and come after him. Playing the role with wide-eyed innocence and slowly transforming into the reluctant hero who picks up a gun and declares war in the name of justice, Howell managed to keep up the pace with his co-star and the two perform well together. Leigh adds likeable support as he tragic Nash, whom it is at first hinted that she would become the heroine (Sarah Connor to Howell’s Reese if The Terminator is still a comparison), before proving to be the final victim.

The Hitcher successfully avoided being a product of its time and has managed to age surprisingly well, which makes the Platinum Dunes remake all the more redundant. Without contemporary music, obvious ’80s fashion or any pop culture references, the film is not trapped in its era and thanks to Harmon’s direction the movie still looks fresh and stylish. Eric Red’s simple-yet-effective script is strong on character and pace and avoids becoming too overblown or comical, instead focusing on Hauer’s never-ending pursuit of his young victim. The Hitcher was by far one of the best thrillers of the decade, avoiding unnecessary subplots or ‘filler’ scenes and instead keeping the action coming fast. Definitely a classic!

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