Highwaymen (2004)

best movie i've ever seen.

Blistering performances.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Homicidal motorist(Colm Feore), whose 1972 pepper green El Dorado(with a bum headlight)is his tool of execution, is being pursued across America by the film's protagonist(James Caviezel), the husband of a victim he run through in cold blood. Next on this madman's list is a haunted woman by the name of Molly(Rhona Mitra; DOOMSDAY), a motorphobic since being orphaned when her parents were killed in a hit-and-run crash. Cray(Caviezel)will have to protect Molly while engaged in a cat and mouse road game with 'Fargo'(Feore), aligning himself with a state traffic investigator, Mackin(Frankie Faison), when she is kidnapped by the psychopath. Fargo, whose mangled, mechanized body was caused by Cray on purpose when he drove his car into the killer out of revenge for his wife's sadistic murder, will wish to stage a similar crash for Molly..confined to a wheel chair, Fargo has a mechanical brace for his right arm, a prosthetic left arm, and mechanized legs/feet thanks to Cray's handiwork. While following after Fargo, Cray is often left prosthetic arms as bread crumbs..Fargo also enjoys teasing Cray over the CB. Mackin is the investigator when Fargo causes a massive pile-up in a tunnel(and another crash which kills Molly's friend, Boone, portrayed by Gordon Currie)which involves Molly..Molly herself has a reason to get even with Fargo, he hit her pal, Alexandra(Andrea Roth)with his El Dorado as well. Cray has done his homework and gives a psyche evaluation of Fargo to Macklin, how he's always been obsessed with a fascination for "vehicular carnage" since his own father was an automobile insurance agent(pictures of damaged cars and humans were often shown to Fargo as a boy, and this warped him to the degree that he himself had a desire to inflict such harm). Pretty straight-forward, well-acted action thriller, fast-paced with a rather basic, non-complex plot. It all goes as you'd expect and is over before you know it. Feore(Stephen King's STORM OF THE CENTURY)is in the movie for maybe ten minutes, but leaves an impression because he is always good at playing characters that are pure evil. Caviezel remains distant and cold, but I think that's appropriate for his character who is tormented by this man who took his beloved away. Mitra is mostly quietly anguished and aloof, her tragic past having shaped who she is at present. As you might expect in a movie such as this, good use of rural locations and desolate highways, not to mention some well-staged auto crashes and vehicle stunts.

HIGHWAYMEN is a suspense thriller which has a good premise. The main idea is kind of original and I must say I appreciated the beginning. But when the plot starts developing I think it starts losing its original impact turning into a average "psycho killer" story. The ending is very predictable and poor. With a strong beginning like that, I was expecting something better.Somehow this movie made me remind MAD MAX, not because of the plot, since it's completely different, but mainly because of the cars, and the two highway men.The acting is not bad but as told the plot is too simple and predictable. I think a good main idea like that would deserve a better plot resolution… I score it 5/10.

My interest in seeing Highwaymen stems from the fact that it was directed by Robert Harmon; the same man behind what is probably the best road thriller ever made, 'The Hitcher'. Any hopes of this being as good as the 1986 film are quashed immediately, however, as an early scene that sees a number of cars smash into each other makes it clear that the action scenes aren't directed with any panache, and once the film starts properly and we are introduced to the dull cast of characters; all that we are left with is a rather crappy thriller. It seems as if Harmon thought he was directing something more like The Terminator, as the lead villain is a mechanical monstrosity, while Jim Caviezel's character stinks of Michael Biehn's Reese in the aforementioned masterpiece. The film gets underway when a young woman escapes from a car accident that claimed her friend. It soon becomes apparent that the perpetrator is a serial hit and runner, as the mysterious Rennie pops up and tells the young woman that he has been hunting the man in the car ever since he killed his wife.In fairness, this film has to be given some plaudits for the fact that the car chases don't utilise CGI, and so they have a certain realism to them (even if this realism is often way over the top). It's hard to really care for any of the action, though, because the characters are so poor and since the lead actress is so irritating, I often found myself cheering on the murderer. The villain is slightly different to the norm; given that he's a wheelchair bound maniac driving a specially adapted car, which he uses as a murder weapon. However, this sort of thing has been seen many times before and the fact that it's all so unlikely brings it down. Jim Caviezel hasn't been in many great films, but he should be glad that Mel Gibson took a chance on him in 2004 as I'm sure he wouldn't want to make rubbish like this for the rest of his career. The central cast is rounded off by British actress Rhona Mitra, who doesn't get to do much in her role. Overall, this is a far from perfectly pitched thriller; the action sequences aren't very exciting, the characters are boring and the plot doesn't offer much. Not worth bothering with, is my verdict.

I had never heard of this film before seeing it, I could only tell Robert Harmon was a good director to remember - although "Nowhere To Run" wasn't a very good film, "The Hitcher" had left quite an impression on me. Since "The Hitcher" was such a good road-movie, I believed "Highwaymen" would have to be a good car chase film as well. I was still underestimating the man. First of all, I need to say I've always found polished cinematography was a sign of respect for the audience. I could remember "The Hitcher" being superbly photographed, I could remember long-time Robert Harmon collaborator Eric Red (who wrote several screenplays for Harmon and directed close-in style films) had also shot beautiful images for "Cohen And Tate", and in "Highwaymen", once again, the audience is being served as far as mesmerizing visuals go. The cinematographer, crew and director polished all the visual aspects of the film: lights, framings, colors, sceneries, production design, editing... From the very first images of the film, the scope 2:35.1 format will either please you or turn you off, but I've always found it a very good technical choice whenever films deal with fear, tension, hatred or if action is involved: just look at all the Sergio Leone's westerns that use scope. And this film (along with "The Hitcher", "Cohen and Tate", etc) is not very different from a western as well, some sequences of the film reminding of the usual showdowns, landscapes or framings of westerns.But the visuals aren't the only element of the film that will keep you wide awake. The plot's purpose is very simple, if not humble. It's a film with no pretension whatsoever, if not to tell a simple story well and entertain the viewers (as opposed to a zillion films today that have the pretension to tell badly a complicate story and make half the audience fall asleep while they're doing that). Robert Harmon is a man of few words, and the same goes for his collaborator Eric Red. It's only 10 minutes into the film that I realized there hadn't been any dialogs yet. When came along some dialogs, they were written with enough wit and humor to not be unpleasant ("Congratulations! You arrested his door!"), yet bring something to the story. The film borrows elements from "Duel" by Steven Spielberg, from "Crash", by David Cronenberg, but always in a respectful manner and always bringing something new to what the elements it borrows. The casting is very appropriate as well: Jim Caviezel is a good choice for the main character of the film, Colm Feore's bad guy has all the sick and evil in him you can wish for. The film also makes a stand in the fact that it has close to no gunshots at all, almost no stupid useless sentimental sequences (only one kiss!), also it's not sinking amid boring long speeches sequences between characters, it's so incredibly sober and free of all the usually boring or annoying elements of contemporary films, that its length itself proves how dense and fast-paced the film is: it runs for around 1 hour and 17 minutes (and I really wish more films were like this one, short, dense, inventive and exciting - in a word, stripped bare to its most important elements). The absence of a 2nd unit director says it all: if the director wants to get something done, he does it. This attitude of not delegating tasks is maybe also what makes the difference between good and bad directors; it relates to motivation.See this film, and if you like it dare discover the other road-movies made by Harmon and Red. Much, much better than all the fast and all the furious reunited.