Violent Road

Moviecut—Violent Road

source: Violent Road

Violent Road

When the truck looses its brakes and is out of control. In the closeups and overheads the hill rises on driver's side. In the longshot the hill is on the passenger side.

The cigar chomping executive hires a group of tinhorn drivers led by a re-tread trucker to haul rocket fuel by truck across a treacherous route. A strict timeline and big pay outs await for a successful convoy across desert and difficult backroads. A entertaining'B'film which I could imagine sitting in a theater and watching back in the day. Brian Keith never once face-palmed even with all the challenges he faced as trail boss.

Trucker Mitch Barton (Brian Keith) has three days to transport explosive rocket fuel over a dangerous mountain road. He had lied, but the owner has no choice. He has no trucks and no drivers. The company provides the trucks and Mitch recruits a few hard-lucked drivers. This is an American remake of The Wages of Fear (1953). This one is only a shadow of its superior predecessor. The tension never gets that high. It doesn't have the fear. Not enough of the road looks dangerous. There are moments which suggest at what this could have been. This one has less to say about the wages. Neither the fear nor the wages are all there. It's all a little less.

The picture should have had the title of Danger Ahead. It's basically the story of truckers trying to get dangerous chemical moved to the new location. In the midst of all this, one of our truckers, who is substituting for his alcoholic brother, breaks out singing Rolling Along With A Breeze. That song was appropriate for the 1954 film "The Long Long Trailer with Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz and Marjorie Main. It was ridiculous here to say the least. The film tries to reveal the personal lives of the truckers on this mission. It could have been certainly more exciting given the nature of the topic. Instead, we get explosions, death on the road, and a lot of broken bones.

Well I couldnt help but notice that the first real obstacle on the road (a falling 500lb. Boulder) was easily drop kicked out of the truck path. In reality this stone would have snapped his leg like a tooth pick.

While I can't say I prefer this film to either Wages of Fear or Sorcerer, I agree that it is pretty enjoyable. Some of the wisecracks and banter are pure 1950's hard-boiled pulp, and Brian Keith has never been better as a certain type of swaggering man's man particular to that Era. "Walker would shrink his own mother's head for a dollar." "I'm not allergic to a buck, either." "You pull a stunt like that again I'll rub yer head in the sand til its hamburger!" While all of this is certainly amusing in a time capsule kind of way, the film itself plays like the storyboards to a much more tension-filled film. Compared to the trials and tribulations undergone by the doomed men in both Wages of Fear and Sorcerer, the journey in Violent Road is rather muted. But still, an enjoyable way to spend an hour and twenty eight minutes.