Almost an oxymoron, isn't it? A well-done serial murderer story? Yet they do come along from time to time. This one isn't as innovative as "Seven," not as well observed, but it's still above average.
The killer, the affable Danny Glover, arranges to take the hitch-hiking, unwitting Jared Leto on a trip through the Colorado mountains in the middle of winter. Glover, whose identity is unknown to any social control agents, is being pursued by a local police department, R. Lee Ermey in charge, and a loose cannon FBI agent, Dennis Quaid, whose son Glover has kidnapped and stashed away somewhere.
Half the film has Glover driving his white El Dorado, festooned with pics of Playmates of the Month, through a convincingly snowy landscape. The other half deals with the reluctant cooperation between Ermey and Quaid. Ermey finally decides to throw the law books out the window and join Quaid in his personal quest. The climax brings Glover, Leto, and Quaid together in the caboose of a freight train plowing its way through a mountain pass and turns the movie into what is more or less a formulaic bang up.
Two things contribute to the quality of the film. One is the location shooting. Everything looks cold, bare, gloomy, and windswept. The landscape seems to be hibernating and waiting for spring. The other thing is Danny Glover's performance as the serial killer. He's great. A Scatman Crothers whose big grin and avuncular manner barely manage to mask the vicious psychopath beneath. Glover's character has worked these mountain passes for the railroad before. Everyone in the small towns along the route and on the job seem to know and love him -- and he's a black guy too. It says volumes about our national change in attitude that someone was willing to cast an African-American actor as a charming murderer of white people, and Glover justifies the risk that was taken.
Quaid is stolid, stuck in the humorless role of the anxious but determined father. Jared Leto can't really act at all. And there are clichés in abundance. The car that rolls off the road and hangs on the edge of a cliff while its occupants try to crawl out of the wreck. It's held up by a single tree, which cracks and allows the vehicle to plunge into the valley, while Leto hangs onto some projecting roots by his fingertips.
But it's Danny Glover who redeems the film. At the start, we only see him as an amiable guy, and only gradually do we come to suspect his identity as the killer. The first time he uses his knife, the victim is an old friend with whom he has shared his childhood. It's a truly chilling scene. Glover's friendly smile fades into a scowl while the puzzled victim simply stares back at him. Then there is Glover's death. He's knocked from a speeding train and does a series of somersaults down a snowy slope, yipping and yelling along the way, like Major Kong riding the catastrophic bomb in "Doctor Strangelove." What a job he does.
At heart, it's just another serial killer story but -- here we must all get on our knees and thank heaven for small favors -- the killer doesn't leave puzzling clues behind based on "Alice in Wonderland" or The Seven Deadly Sins or the first folio of Billy Shakespeare's works or the seven levels of Inuit hell. There's only one teasing clue, and it doesn't require a trip to the library to solve it. There's really very little gore, and no violence except for a few minutes at the end.
You'll probably like it.
The killer, the affable Danny Glover, arranges to take the hitch-hiking, unwitting Jared Leto on a trip through the Colorado mountains in the middle of winter. Glover, whose identity is unknown to any social control agents, is being pursued by a local police department, R. Lee Ermey in charge, and a loose cannon FBI agent, Dennis Quaid, whose son Glover has kidnapped and stashed away somewhere.
Half the film has Glover driving his white El Dorado, festooned with pics of Playmates of the Month, through a convincingly snowy landscape. The other half deals with the reluctant cooperation between Ermey and Quaid. Ermey finally decides to throw the law books out the window and join Quaid in his personal quest. The climax brings Glover, Leto, and Quaid together in the caboose of a freight train plowing its way through a mountain pass and turns the movie into what is more or less a formulaic bang up.
Two things contribute to the quality of the film. One is the location shooting. Everything looks cold, bare, gloomy, and windswept. The landscape seems to be hibernating and waiting for spring. The other thing is Danny Glover's performance as the serial killer. He's great. A Scatman Crothers whose big grin and avuncular manner barely manage to mask the vicious psychopath beneath. Glover's character has worked these mountain passes for the railroad before. Everyone in the small towns along the route and on the job seem to know and love him -- and he's a black guy too. It says volumes about our national change in attitude that someone was willing to cast an African-American actor as a charming murderer of white people, and Glover justifies the risk that was taken.
Quaid is stolid, stuck in the humorless role of the anxious but determined father. Jared Leto can't really act at all. And there are clichés in abundance. The car that rolls off the road and hangs on the edge of a cliff while its occupants try to crawl out of the wreck. It's held up by a single tree, which cracks and allows the vehicle to plunge into the valley, while Leto hangs onto some projecting roots by his fingertips.
But it's Danny Glover who redeems the film. At the start, we only see him as an amiable guy, and only gradually do we come to suspect his identity as the killer. The first time he uses his knife, the victim is an old friend with whom he has shared his childhood. It's a truly chilling scene. Glover's friendly smile fades into a scowl while the puzzled victim simply stares back at him. Then there is Glover's death. He's knocked from a speeding train and does a series of somersaults down a snowy slope, yipping and yelling along the way, like Major Kong riding the catastrophic bomb in "Doctor Strangelove." What a job he does.
At heart, it's just another serial killer story but -- here we must all get on our knees and thank heaven for small favors -- the killer doesn't leave puzzling clues behind based on "Alice in Wonderland" or The Seven Deadly Sins or the first folio of Billy Shakespeare's works or the seven levels of Inuit hell. There's only one teasing clue, and it doesn't require a trip to the library to solve it. There's really very little gore, and no violence except for a few minutes at the end.
You'll probably like it.