A few years ago there was a low-budget thriller called Breakdown. It starred Kurt Russell and J.T. Walsh and had a running time of just over 90 minutes. And what an edge-of-your-seat 90 minutes that was! Unfortunately not many people saw, or even heard of, Breakdown. But those who did see it usually agree that it was one of the best movies of that year. Joy Ride is this year’s equivalent.

Joy Ride tells the story of two brothers, Fuller and Lewis (Steve Zahn and Paul Walker), on a cross-country car ride. Along the way, Fuller talks a garage mechanic down in price on a CB radio. This allows the two to discover the joys of something they refer to as a "prehistoric Internet." And it doesn’t take them long to get into trouble with it. They play a mean-spirited joke on a trucker who calls himself Rusty Nail. Unfortunately it doesn’t turn out the way they thought it would. Rusty Nail doesn’t take well to being the butt end of a joke and ends up severely mutilating and almost killing an innocent man. He then sets off to find and terrorize the two brothers.

Director John Dahl seems to love movies that put his star characters in helpless situations. It was like that in Rounders, The Last Seduction, and Red Rock West, and it’s like that here. When being chased, Fuller and Lewis aren’t larger-than-life action heroes. They’re terrified guys who want nothing more than to find a way to get Rusty Nail to leave them alone. They run, plead, and beg, but Rusty Nail won’t give up until he gets some sort of revenge. What he wants no one really knows, and that’s also part of the beauty of this film. No one ever sees Rusty Nail and no one knows his motivation, and that seems to make him even scarier. As a result, Rusty Nail is one of the best villains we’ve had in years.

Joy Ride is every bit the nail-biter that Breakdown was, and then some. I was glued to the screen for the entire running time. What could have been a run-of-the-mill teenage shock fest gets a **** rating.

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