The Hitcher | Cinema | Auto Class Magazine

The Hitcher | Cinema

The Hitcher | Cinema

“Never give a ride to strangers” – this is a warning as simple as it is easy to ignore on Jim’s long drive from Chicago to San Diego, where he has to deliver a car. The California dream, a long-awaited assignment and a hitchhiker standing on the side of the road under a rainy night. This is how the nightmare begins and that soon puts the victim at the center of police suspicions for a series of murders left along the endless and desert roads of wild Texas.

TITLE: The Hitcher

YEAR: 1986

DIRECTED BY: Robert Harmon

LENGHT: 1h 37 min

GENRE: thriller, action

“The Hitcher” is a 1986 thriller that sees among the protagonists none other than Rutger Hauer and a young C. Thomas Howell which under the guise of an adrenaline road trip movie manages to bring together the suspense of an upside-down situation compared to a reality that at times even seems to be the result of the young motorist’s imagination. Obviously, since this is a film that takes place for almost its entire duration along a road, there are several panoramic shots that offer the feeling of solitude of the immense Texan desert, while as far as cars concern we do not have a proper protagonist, but in the initial part most of the scenes are focused on the red ’77 Cadillac Seville (not exactly stock) that Jim has to drive to San Diego, a luxurious and comfortable sedan that withstands accidents, explosions and chases. “The Hitcher” will not be a masterpiece and towards the end it seems to suffer a hint of narrative fatigue, but it remains a thriller that has made school and that demonstrates the exceptional expressiveness of the mysterious villain.

Edited by Tommaso Mogge