The Hitcher (1986)

Last night I watched the Bruce Willis vehicle "Hostage", but can't work up the enthusiasm to post a review, other than to say that he periodically began emoting like crazy, as if acting awards were given to drivel like that.  So I'll comment on the above movie instead and it's hard to believe that it is now nearly twenty years since I first viewed it.  In the meantime it has become something of a cult favourite and understandably so, as Rutger Hauer portrays a vicious and nearly unstoppable killer.  I wrote of him recently that his career has taken something of a downward spiral, and while his American roles were never as powerful as his early Dutch ones (like Spetters, Keetje Tippel, and Turkish Delight), he was something of a whirlwind force back in the 80's.  Here he plays against C. Thomas Howell as the young driver that he terrorizes; Howell too had the makings of a career back then, but it has subsequently gone down the toilet.  It doesn't pay to look too closely at the logic of the story, but the terrifying symbiosis between the two leads draws one in.

Long before the "Kevin Bacon Game", we used to play our own game linking any male and any female actor, like say Mary Martin and Steve Martin, minimising the number of links.  Any pair with more than one film in common was a "oner" and "The Hitcher" reunites Hauer with Jennifer Jason Leigh (before she got all affected) -- the previous pairing being "Flesh + Blood".  It's fascinating how Hauer moves from having forced his lust upon her the year before to tearing her in quarters here.  But that's our Rutger for you.