Wrecker (2015)
Starring Anna Hutchison, Andrea Whitburn, Michael Dickson
Directed by Micheal Bafaro
What is it with angry drivers, particularly in the larger-scaled vehicles on the highways and back roads of this great country? Duel, Joy Ride, and now Micheal Bafaro’s Wrecker all feature some sort of pissed off lunatic behind the wheel, ready to dispense a little road justice upon a slew of hapless motorists, pedestrians, and other assorted fleshy speed bumps. While the other two films excelled in providing some chills and road hazard thrills, this particular presentation overheats and breaks down mid-trip, leaving its viewers at the mercy of a rescue Uber driver… now that’s frightening.
The film allows us to sit in the back seat of Emily and Leslie’s booze-soaked, weed-clouded road trip, and wouldn’t ya know it… someone decides, “Hey, I know a shortcut!” Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the ever-dreaded, nonsensical shortcut in motion pictures – what has doomed literally thousands of characters who’ve THOUGHT that they knew where their feeble minds were leading them, unequivocally led them to a dung-heap of trouble. So, we’ll put Emily on the hook here for her inane selection of internal GPS prognostication, and it’s not before long where they’re being vehicularly (completely fabricated word) stalked by a wrecker driver who apparently found rat shit in his Rice Krispies this morning. In other words, he’s pissed and ready to take it out on someone.
Now here’s my main problem with this film (and it’s a huge one) – in Duel, Dennis Weaver’s crappy little Plymouth Valiant, in essence, tried valiantly to outrun the horrifically imposing Peterbilt driven by the unseen kook behind the wheel on the sun-baked byways of California. We then hitch a Joy Ride, where the pursued Chrysler Newport is tailed relentlessly by another hopped-up Peterbilt… stretch? Perhaps, but fun nevertheless.
Now we have a motor vehicle meant, built, and conceptually christened for speed – the Ford Mustang. Yet, in this film, it is PAINFULLY unable to outrun (at many instances) a fairly lackluster tow truck driven by a driver we NEVER see, outside of more than a few inside-the-cab shots where it’s implied that he could be a satanic cast-off, sent to Earth to unleash hell upon road trippers… umm, okay. If the onus was placed directly down on the sadistic, relentless game of cat and mouse, I’d probably not be so scathing with my review; however, this was one of the more repetitious, haphazardly, and ultimately boring series of chases I’ve seen in a long time. Jeezus, even Morgan Freeman put the hammer down at some point in Driving Miss Daisy! Added to that, both Hutchison and Whitburn are hard to believe in their roles as friends – not a whole lot of time spent developing these two character-wise; therefore, you couldn’t care less what happened to them during the course of this snoozer.
Topped off with some prosaic CGI and a conclusion that will leave you yawning, Wrecker is simply one of those films that would be better suited as a time-killer for kids sitting through Driver’s Ed. My advice on this one? Take the bus – generally it’s a little safer, and the sights are always more entertaining.
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