Duel (Collector's Edition)
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Movie Reviews of Duel (Collector's Edition)
Movie Review: YOU'LL NEVER LOOK AT A PETERBILT THE SAME AGAIN!!
Summary: 5 Stars
DUEL is Steven Spielberg's first full length feature movie (originally made for the ABC Movie Of The Week and then expanded for theaters) and the one that put him on the Hollywood map. If you're in the mood for a good Hitchcock-like movie, this is it. Watch it when you're home alone at night. The film stars Dennis Weaver and THE TRUCK. It starts out looking thru the lens of a camera mounted on the front bumper of a car backing out of the garage, then driving thru the suburban Los Angeles neighborhood, into the rush hour traffic of the LA freeway system. When you finally meet the middle-aged salesman on his way to meet a client somewhere outside of LA in a rural, desert area, he's turned off the freeway onto a lonely, two lane highway. That's where you also meet the co-star of the film, the Peterbilt truck with the tanker trailer. Peterbilt has the long, menacing-looking hood (the face) and the small windows (eyes) and this one looks like it went thru the Vietnam War and is dirty and greasy and has a set of various state license plates on the front bumper (which you learn in the commentary represent each state where he has killed a motorist). Sick of the diesel smoke blowing in the window of his red 4 door Plymouth Valiant sedan, Dennis Weaver looks for an opening to pass THE TRUCK. Whether it was passing it that triggered the decision to terrorize the motorist or he was just waiting for the right victim to come along, we don't know but we keep waiting to see the driver and there are many suspenseful moments when you think the two men will confront each other face to face. The movie is full of suspense as THE TRUCK tries to run Weaver down in the mountains and desert of rural California on a lonely highway. The suspense is constant so that you don't want to turn away for a minute or you might miss something. There is little or no foul language, no sex, just good old fashioned suspense and a fist fight and some vehicles doing damage to property. Very climactic ending. The movie was made entirely on location in 12 days, a phenomenal accomplishment. Watch the interview with Spielberg and you will get a feel for the genius of him as a filmmaker. [...]
Movie Review: Jaws On Wheels
Summary: 5 Stars
What fascinates me the most about the film Duel is how simplistic it is. Stephen Spielberg was given a car, a truck, the desert, a few town stops along the way, rocks and more desert and was able to make a 72-minute TV movie out of it (and then later expand it to 90 minutes for official release). For those of you unfamiliar with the film, it's very simple. A salesman is driving through a desert on his way to a business meeting; after he passes a truck that is going too slow multiple times, it escalates to a sick game of cat and mouse as our hero must drive for his life before the truck driver ends it.
Duel was Spielberg's first movie and is a great example of what can be done with very little. The camera work is brilliant; Dennis Weaver's acting really draws you in to his character's fear and paranoia; and the truck always looks menacing. The truck's warning Flammable seen on the side of the truck implies that the driver is a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off, while the multiple license plates on the front bumper imply that the he has killed before and is a possible serial killer). There are many things drawn from Hitchcock films such as the constant usage of suspense to hook the viewer. The greatest example of this is the fact that we never see what the truck driver looks like. Sure, we see a hand of a foot every now and then, but we never get a glance at the man's face. This little bit of missing information allows us to be afraid because we never know what kind of monster we are up against.
If you haven't seen this movie and are a Spielberg fan, hunt it down as quickly as possible. It's basically the rough draft version of Jaws, as the death cry of the shark is the same sound used in Duel when the truck is destroyed. I personally think Spielberg needs to go back and do another horror/suspense film like Duel or Jaws just because he was so good at it and it would be nice to have another film like those released today where as most horror films are just so bland and dull today, lacking a unique edge.
Movie Review: Straight Action Thriller:Road Rage - Stalked by an 18 Wheeler
Summary: 5 Stars
Total action film with virtually no other stars other than Dennis Weaver while others are virtual character actors sprinkled briefly throughout the film. Weaver is a middle aged, middle class man riding in a humble sedan. He has a modest clash with a trucker on a desert highway and in turn earns the unrelenting hatred of the trucker whose lone focus is homicidal revenge. The uniqueness of the film is that neither the face nor the voice of the truck driver is seen or heard but throughout Weaver's journey across the barren southwestern landscape, the truck is always gaining in his rearview mirror or confronting him while making legal stops. Steven Spielberg directs this 1971 classic that leaves you in suspense as to the motives of the truck driver as this movie becomes a gladiator fight between the weak and un-powered, Weaver and his pedestrian car, and the strong and powerful, the truck driver and the engine and weight of his tractor trailer. The movie is virtually frightening as Weaver's character seems weak and powerless symbolized by his confrontation with a man he thinks is the truck driver while stopped at a remote dinner. After suffering an undignified physical trauma, Weaver returns to the road but again, the unseen truck driver continues to stalk Weaver as it becomes obvious that the hunted and the hunter can only finish with a violent and abrupt ending. The ending is all those things but considering the unresolved mystery, the ending is ironically satisfying. Devoid of other characters, the total action touched with a virtual close up of Weaver's racing mind makes one think this was an early Spielberg college film entry that was magnified by a studio budget, which may be why it's so unique. Thrilling, captivating and with a touch of Rod Sterling like mania suspense, you won't regret the film's non-stop mystery ride.Movie Review: Classic Suspense
Summary: 5 Stars
Duel is one of my favorite movies. One i can pull off the shelf and view again and again. The story line is well covered by other reviewers, so i'll spend a moment on other areas. Duel reminds me of the kind of suspense Hitchcock was so well known for and a little bit like some of Stephen King's works. This movie builds a generic character (Dennis Weaver) as just a normal guy. The kind of guy you see every day in the restaurant, or car beside you. The development of his character and who he is throughout the movie is intriquing from the start. Opening: he backs out of his non descript suburban home, drives down his street, 'coasts' through the stop sign to turn right(St. Louis stop hehehe). Them proceeds down a business district street. He drives STRAIGHT thru a left turn only lane, then as he approaches pedestrians in the cross walk, slows just enough to let them cross in front of him. All very typical driving patterns of people who don't have a policeman in their rear view mirror. He drives through a lonely stretch of highway listening to talk radio and talks to himself as a comment or laugh at what's being said. We've all been behind people driving (not just trucks) who seem to ignore basic courtesy, traffic laws, and common sense. In this case, the trucker is downright crazy or suffers from a severe case of road rage. Weaver's character changes as the movie progresses. Instead of being the 'nice guy' don't make waves guy, or passive driver, he becomes aggressive, defensive, and vindictive while still remaining the victim. Indeed the Duel is a most interesting character study and an excellent story. It brings out the inner hidden feelings most of us have or would have if put into an unbelievable/outlandish situation. In the Duel, we experience that rarity, temporary suspension of disbelief.Movie Review: ENDURING TV MOVIE CLASSIC IS A MUST SEE
Summary: 5 Stars
DUEL is a riveting little psychodrama that glued me to my seat as a teenager back in the sweltering Seventies and still does. One of Steven Spielberg's early directorial efforts, it is a classic among TV movies. Simple story of a working family man just trying to drive his car across the barren dust-beaten rural Southwest following, then being followed, by a truck. Soon the truck is trying to drive the poor urbanite off the road. A cat-and-mouse game ensues until things get nasty and it becomes evident that getting killed is a distinct possibility. The goings on take place on a simple stretch of interstate highway. The visual menace is the imposing truck with its exhaust, its metal, its speed. The psychological menace is in the intent, the perceived motive, the senselessness, the isolation. Its driver is faceless---we see a boot here, a rear-view window reflection there, a glancing back-of-the-head shot there. The terror experienced by this poor guy was predominantly in the expansive, intangible universe of his mind where civilized common sense gave way to paranoia and then to rudimentary survival. The lead was played by the always underappreciated Dennis Weaver whose TREMENDOUS performance I will never forget. The scene where he is trying to outrun the truck , with his car's radiator overheating, struggling to get the faltering vehicle beyond the highway incline so that he can coast the rest of the way is memorable. The scene where he walks into a diner in a paranoid daze and surveys the farmers and truckers for possible complicity is a beaut. This was a tense, suspenseful, riveting TV movie and a classic one. Hopefully, it will actuate movie companies to put more of those lost but great late 60's and early-to-mid 70's TV movie gems out on DVD.