Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

On the desert highway crossing the intersections of Chicago, Texas and California, Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) travels to make a delivery for a car buyer in L.A.. He stops to pick up a hitch-hiker named John Ryder (Rutger Hauer) who quickly shows his true colours as a psychotic killer and holds Jim at knifepoint. Through the course of the film, John Ryder takes Jim on a ride of mayhem and murder, as Jim tries repeatedly to escape and John casually murders everyone they come across, frameing Jim for the crimes, provoking the pursuit of Texas rangers who will shoot first and ask questions later, how on Earth will Jim survive?

Basically "The Hitcher" is a slice of paranoia cinema- trust no-one, don't talk to strangers and don't let them in your car. For that reason my mother will refuse to see it- believing that this and all the other sensationalist and fabricating newspapers demonise hitch-hikers and restrict the mobility of the poor who travel to seek work by tapping into social phobias.

In-fact it's the kind of messages that in the new age we almost consider erroneous, negative and regressive. In the new age of a generation raised in a racially integrated, sexually liberated society with freedom of speech, freedom of interaction and social mobility and even freedom of religion, raised on multi cultural and uncensored music and dance and indie music promoting a revival of the 60's spirit of love and also raised on movies like "Fight Club", "American History X" and "Bowling For Collumbine" which tell of personal learning revolutions, the futility of violence, the rejection of fear and the positive strength of human collectivism and trust. We believe that life is short and there may be no God and no afterlife and we owe it to ourselves in the free world to see as much of the world's natural beauties and landmarks and pieces of art as we can and even to touch as many lives as possible. We no longer heed formalities or cautions about where we can and can't go, what we can and can't see, or who we should or shouldn't talk to, regardless of their race, religion, class, gender or sexuality. In-fact it doesn't even matter if the person we approach and speak to is a stranger, because ultimately there are no strangers. Every human being is a mirror of ourselves.

But then again even if this can be labelled a piece of regressive art from a regressive and backlashing time of 1980's cinema fascism (since it was made in the same decade as "Robocop" and "Fatal Attraction"), the beauty of the film is how it does what horror is supposed to do and strips down our comfortable conceits about the modern world and for a few moments brings our mortality into sharp relief and scares us. Certainly the new wave audience doesn't believe in the credibility of the scenario- that a complete stranger would commit these random acts of violence for no reason- because we know there must be a reason for everything- especially violence, no matter how deluded or petty. And we must believe that, even if knowing the reason doesn't help us, it gives us peace of mind and it keeps us from dangerous thinking where we believe that having a reason for committing violence makes all the difference and automatically justifies the act. But that's what makes a scary scenario- when there's no visible motive- when violence doesn't follow a clear pattern of motivation, method and aim, but instead is total nihilism- uncontroleable.

One scene defines the whole film- the drama, the characters and the nihilism. in the car, John Ryder is holding a knife right up to Jim's eyeball to make sure he keeps driving and doesn't try to escape, but it looks like he will kill him regardless.

Jim Halsey: "What do you want?"

John: "I want you to stop me!"

Jim Halsey: "But You've got the knife, you'll stick me with it before I can do anything"

John: "That's right! So what have you got to lose? Stop me!"

This immediately introduces us to a world of nihilistic violence, an inescapeable and infallible threat, a protagonist who is far more victim than hero, and a psychotic mass murderer without a motive.

Jim Halsey's helplessness sets him so far apart as a protagonist. He is supposed to be our hero, but he is a hostage. He is trapped by a psychopath who keeps him alive only to force him to watch his operatic orchestra of murder and destruction. The authorities which are supposed to protect him are completely mad. No matter what he tries to do to escape, he never can. People die around him and he is powerless to stop it no matter what he does.

It is the realism to Jim's character that makes this film so powerful. Not only is he the boy next door or the average guy, he is the product of the civilised world and who reacts appropriately to violent situations as ones which are not only terrifying but totally alien to him. Everything about his reactions is real and authentic. His reactions to having a knife held to his eyeball, being shot at by brutal police, or even having a gun in his hand for the first time in his life, reveal the layered psychological barriers that prevent us from acting out violently, even when provoked, something prevents us from going all the way- fear, compassion, or outright disbelief influences his compulsive hesitations. Part of an upbringing where we learn to avoid or humour petty adversaries. Emphasised by his screams or sometimes by his inability to scream, by his shaking hand, by his struggling to open a gun barrel, by the struggling expressions trying desperately to front aggressive control.

Though the film never fully describes what makes civilised people crumble in intimidation, it seems to know exactly how the human adrenal system works when someone is threatened. If you react quickly and channel your fear into anger, the rush of adrenalin will boost strength and quicken your reactions and you will have a good fighting chance. However if you hesitate, then in the span of a few seconds the adrenaline will seriously mess up your body and you will be shaking and your joints will feel like jelly and your advantage will have gone.

Occasionally some quick thinking and ingenuity gets him out of tight fixes or briefly gives him the upper hand but for the most part he is a wrecked, confused and more insecure than he’s ever been in his life, and he only manages to escape death most of the time due to John Ryder’s perverse mercy towards his ‘special prey’, and he never escapes for too long before John catches up with him again.

The film is centrally about Jim’s depression and his transformation as a character. C. Thomas Howell gives a fantastic performance as the character. Howell was pretty well known for playing frat boys in the many teen comedies of the 80’s. This was a role which really challenged him to play scenes of terror and madness and he did all superbly. The cinematography too compliments his character with the right focuses on his facial and bodily reactions.

It is the great cinematography which compliment well his character and his predicament. In moments of action, the scenes of Texas Rangers blasting hot steel bullets at Jim's car, through the steel, the windows and seat fabric are superb, with the suspense and immediate danger of a James Bond film or a John Woo flick, with just the untypical dose of panic. In still moments the camera frames settings perfectly, becoming more tight and entrapping asd the film goes on and wherever Jim Halsey is, the shot remains there so statically that, rather like Jim, we actually wonder if anything and anyone outside the director's field of vision actually exists or are they just part of his nightmare- but the blend of fantastic and diabolic and reality make this feel like a "waking nightmare" that can never be awoken from or escaped.

One of the early shots in the film is of the desert highway captured in a beautiful sunny morning. It's a wide shot, capturing shrubs of greenery and a roadway wet and glistening from the rain the night before. It higlights and raises happiness and suggests optimism. But once the Hitcher steps on the scene, we never see another beautiful day like it. There are the cliche night time thunder rumbles and flashes for atmosphere, but most of the action takes place during day time, which are interesting in how they always capture bad weather- either cloudy and uncertain or overcast with sour sunlight colours. A condition that many people with post traumatic stress syndrome complain of- fear tainting their perspective and illuminating everything possibly negative and threatening about their surroundings. Basically we are seeing the world through Jim's eyes.

It is because of Jim Halsey's uncertainty that we never recognise the motivation between Rutger Hauer's John Ryder character. But of course there is much thought for pondering. He is unrestrained violence- the life that Jim is unused to, but which seem to personalise the desert environment where there is hardly any community or any other images of civilisation. Where man can let loose and be the beast he once was. Where trigger happy vigilante Texas Rangers don't just have a position of legal power to abuse, but also live in a lonely environment of few witnesses or fellow police officers to remind them of their humanity or force them to question themselves- solitude leading to a God of Vengeance complex aroused by the sick murders of our main villain. This is the environment where men can become unreasoning savages. In-fact we see the rogue cop underground elite culture in the most realistic presentation of cameraderie and murderous methods.

Perhaps John Ryder is a metaphorical relic of our primal past. A character who is typically unbound by civilised notions and embodies violence at its most humanly liberating. Someone who sees the modern world of civilisation with misanthropic hate and possibly as an unnatural state of being and longs to reinvigorate primal instincts through destructive behaviour and violence. He sweats in many of the scenes he is in, suggesting that he is pure adrenalin and perverse psycho-sexual desire.

He has the characteristics of famous literature characters like Mr. Hyde and even of Iago in Shakespeare's “Othello”. The idea of evil incarnate and the dark half of the hero. A character type which has also been seen in films like “Strangers on a Train” and “Fight Club”. Its the basic qualities- murder with hidden motive, hatred of women and of most other representations of softness, innocence and civilisation and most importantly a skill for playing cruel mind games- thats the devlish image of someone who’s words are deceitful, evil and poisonous and crafting illusions and fears in people’s minds. Tied in with that is their relationship to the hero- back and forth scene jumping emphasising moments of behavioural symetry between hero and villain and even vague suggestions of telepathy, contrasts between the hero’s sexual insecurity or inexperience and the villains perverse sexual savagery, and of course the villain’s crimes must indict and frame the hero since poetically they are one and the same person and both are guilty until the hero takes the responsibility to reckon with the villain and vanquish his darker side.

Certianly it is easy to imagine him as a ghost character. If you watch closely the last appearance he has on screen, it is a long distance shot where we see a dust wind obscure him completely, and then we cut away, never seeing him again. Making us wonder if he has disappeared into the desert winds that gave him life, his task finally done or failed.

If however we were to imagine that John Ryder was a real character then I imagine his personal history would run like this- since there is a fatherly wisdom in his eyes- a manner of grand experience and certainly no self-consiousness about what he is, it suggests a man who’s seen all the far corners of the world, who has lived and somehow never found satisfaction from every life experience he had. Felt he had seen everything and found no purpose and now lives for nihilism.

It also becomes apparent that he is gifted with a photographic memory- he counts gunshots in the heat of battle and recalls them hours later. Perhaps if he sees and remembers everything, it has lead to his detriment and madness, perhaps it has enabled him to unshaking awareness and begrudging of all that is negative and morbid about existence. We can imagine it influencing some kind of obsessive behaviour. Perhaps he remembers every slight and fault of everyone around him, every unspoken deceit, insult and rebuff and can always remember a reason why someone deserves to die.

He's a tortured soul and violence is his art- violence and permission of the will gives him control over the environment- everything is his design of death and fear. There is a scene where he blasts away at police car, firing measured round after round, addicted to the sound of his own gun going off. He wears a composed face willing a delicate pattern of gunfire, like an orchestra composer. For him violence and killing is music.

I could describe this film as the quintissential American movie, combining slasher serial killer, with police action revenge movie, with melancholy road movie and even a twisted mentorn/protege male bonding undertone. The story is most notably inspired by Steven Spielberg's earliest film Duel. More essentially its an insomnia movie, rather like "They Shoot Horses Don't They", "Cube" and "Battle Royale". It takes us into a nightmare of beyond human endurance which taxes us mentally in so many ways- of sleepless nights and lost track of time and desperation, of constant struggle awaiting a better dawn that may never come. Ultimately it's all a test of human survival and perseverence.

As for the violence in the movie, it would be accurate to describe it as sick. There is a high body count indeed, there are dismemberments, there are unsubtle references to cannibalism, there is a lot of blood. To emphasise the humanity regression theme there is one life or death scenario involving a modern day death by being drawn medieval style. At the same time, certain scenes find that the camera cleverly refuse to show the gruesome details and leave it to the imagination, particularly when the killing of women and children is implied. However it is the brilliant, manic and human performances of the victims, the realistic dialogue and a grand sense of timing that put this on an artistic level of human empathy when seeing characters face mortality. Its the kind of life or death situations which will have you thinking weeks later about how on Earth can you escape from that one! I like the film's extreme violence where anything can happen and anyone can die.

Its violence that really changes a character and forces them to evolve. Its message amidst this action is about the curse of civility. everything is a spiralling descent where the longer Jim's character hesitates, the worse things get. There is a scene where Jim Halsey manages to escape with a gun, and rather than using his weapon to prepare for the fight, he points it at his own head and holds it there for ten seconds, trying to pull the trigger and end his own life there and then. It is a poignant moment indeed about human weakness amidst intimidations, and it communicates how we've become so civilised that we can't cope and adapt to the savage environment. We can fight for survival- it is in our nature, but by our second nature, we would rather do anything to escape that life. Perhaps its something to bear in mind when facing violent and unreasoning individuals posessed of hatred, rage and madness, because they are among us. We can lose all connection with the civilised world and its security and when that happens, we must adapt to new rules of survival, and quickly. Then again, the film perhaps suggests some optimism by showing how far we've come and how we've improved and how we've shed our violent philosophies. A timeless film for giving an edge into who we all are.

Recommended adult viewing only due to shocking violence, gore, scenes of cruelty, profanity and violently suggestive language.

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age