Joy Ride (2001) Director: John Dahl

Joy Ride is anything but; this film has great potential but what manifests seems a wasted opportunity, with great holes in the plot and unexplained actions.

Brothers Lewis (Paul Walker) and Fuller Thomas (Steve Zahn), a student and an ex-con respectively, embark on a road trip to pick up Lewis's friend Venna Wilcox (Leelee Sobieski) from the University of Colorado. Bored on the road, they buy a CB radio and start listening into the dialogues. Fuller eggs Lewis on to impersonate a woman and to call himself 'Candy Cane', where he strikes up a conversation with a trucker called Rusty Nail. As a prank, Candy Cane invites Rusty Nail to meet 'her' at a motel room, calling him to the room of an ignorant man that earlier was rude to Fuller at the motel. Rusty turns out to be a psychopath and brutally attacks and mutilates said man. Boys shit themselves, especially when Rusty puts out more messages for Candy Cane on the CB, they admit it was a joke and then get stalked by a big-ass truck from Duel.

Things pick up when the chase starts but the plot is pretty stupid. We never get the pay-off of fully seeing Rusty Nail and his motivation is really not explored; it looks like he is disfigured but this isn't clear. Leelee Sobieski's sole purpose in the film seems to be her nipples, and she shows romantic interest in both brothers which is confusing. Steve Zahn's idiot character though is good fun and lightens the movie. There also isn't much gore - this could have been great but it's pretty tame. A slow ride and a disappointing script by J.J Abrams and Clay Tarver.
2/5