The Hitcher on DVD:

Leave this one on the side of the road

Dane Read | Staff Writer

I’ve been there too, you’ve seen all of the recent DVD releases that caught your interest, but there is this one you haven’t seen yet, standing there, sticking its little plastic thumb out, and you think “hmm, I’ll give it a try.”

“No one picks up strangers,” says Hitcher star, Sophia Bush, so do yourself a favor and leave this one on the shelf.

True to the Genre but mediocre in every way, The Hitcher will let down fans of the 1986 cult classic it is a remake of.

College-student boyfriend and girlfriend, Jim Halsey (Zachary Knighton) and Grace Andrews (Bush), decide to take a road trip to Las Vegas but their vacation turns bad when they nearly hit a hitch hiker (Sean Bean) standing in the middle of the road during a rainstorm. They frantically flee the scene but the hitcher catches up with them down the road, and their game of cat and mouse begins.

From there it becomes profoundly predictable; the couple narrowly escapes the hitch hiker, the hitch hiker kills their surrounding bystanders, the authorities believe the couple is at fault, the couple is detained, the couple escapes from jail and repeat.

There is one moment where I thought the movie might change pace. The couple is speeding down a desert highway to get as far away as possible from the seemingly unstoppable hitchhiker while being chased by three police cars and a helicopter. Then the hitchhiker storms onto the scene in a black Pontiac Trans-Am, firing a pistol at one of the cars and driving the other two off the road. Then, with the same gun, he shoots down the helicopter and vanishes off into the distance along with every shard of anything close to reality and my hope that the flick would end there.

Knighton and Bush’s performances are definitively forgettable, though Bean plays very well as a villain. During the movie most viewers will probably wish there was more focus on his character, as it’s the only one with any personality aside from Police Lieutenant Esteridge who is played by Neal McDonough.

My recommendation: don’t pick up hitchhikers, and don’t pick up this movie.