Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Didn't your parents warn you not to pick up hitchhikers?, 1 Dec 2003
Originally given a cinema release in the UK under the title 'Death Drive' in 1978, Hitch-Hike is a real gem of a foreign film that has received little attention over the years from the mainstream. Until recently the only people who were likely to have been searching out this film would be hardcore David Hess fans, but this anchor bay release deserves to find a much wider audience.The story begins with Franco Nero and Corrine Clery as a married couple on vacation. The couple seem to spend a great deal of time arguing, and given the time and place the film was made, we see a great deal of male chauvinism from Nero's character. Despite this it is hard not to warm to him at least to some extent. During the car journey back from the vacation the pair stop to pick up a hitchhiker, and have a row about whether picking up a hitchhiker is a good idea, and who should the hitchhiker turn out to be? David Hess! Now, most of us know what to expect from a David Hess character, the guy got so typecast after 'Last House On The Left', that we would probably be disappointed if he didn't play a vicious nutcase! Needless to say, the car journey afterwards becomes a great deal more lively... The rest of the film works extremely well as a tight and violent thriller with the characters playing off each other brilliantly so that our sympathies are shifted to and fro between them, and ultimately ending with a shocking twist that both pulls and repulses our sympathies leaving us with a powerful sense of moral ambiguity. One thing to remember is that this is an 18 rated film, and some of the scenes are particularly unpleasant, including rape. Whilst this does fit in with the plot, some viewers may wish to avoid the film because of it. The big draw for this DVD is the film, in Widescreen it looks pretty good considering the relatively low budget that the film was originally made for. The extras on the DVD are nice enough, but not world shatteringly good, but the film is a big enough draw that the lack of a huge bunch of extras does not really matter. Buy this film because it makes you think deeply, not just for the thrill of the violence. This is quality stuff and definitely deserves a place in your DVD collection.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exploitation Please!, 15 Feb 2008
I was all prepared for a let down having sat through lots of similar features over the years but this one really delivered. I'm suprised it isn't better known. For starters there's snappy, incisive dialogue, some great plot twists and plenty of violence and sex although both are pretty tame by contemporary standards. Sexist? Well I guess you could say that but one of the film's strengths is the constantly shifting power balance between the three main characters. None are likeable but you couldn't help feeling for each of them at various points in the unfolding drama. The scene where failed Journalist Franco Nero "interviews" psycho David Hess about his deprived upbringing and finds all his liberal cliches tossed aside is worth the price of admission on its own. Bear in mind, this is exploitation cinema and we're not talking great art. But it does have something, and some straight talking about human character and motivation is just one of the many delights on offer in this underrated and unjustly neglected movie treat.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Most Evil Man In The World, 30 Aug 2009
'Hitch-Hike' is a tough, slobbering road movie starring David Hess - perhaps the most hyper-brazen villain in modern cinema (Andrew Robinson in 'Dirty Harry' gives him a run) - and Franco ("what's in the coffin?") Nero.
Hess is a bank-robber/mass-murderer on the lam, Nero is a boozy journo on a hunting trip. They collide; there's sparks, much unpleasantness and a graphic finale. Straightforward hitch-hiker from hell stuff, right?
Wrong. There's a complication... in the torso-trembling shape of Nero's wife, played by bountiful Corinne Clery.
A ridiculously good-looking woman who could smelt steel; her infernal hotness is a grind-that-playback-button; cold-shower-insufficient; missus-hiding-in-the-wardrobe distraction. As if just seeing her walking or sitting in a truck wasn't enough -- in 'Hitch-Hike' she strips...and strips and strips!
Funny how there's some cliché's you never tire of...
Anyway, she becomes the filling in a Hess/Clery/Nero sandwich; a situation so provocative to the male protagonists, they try to do for each other in increasingly violent and desperate ways.
Ultimately, they night-fight in front of her (she's naked of course), an event which fills her with so much worth and self-esteem, she submits to a rape by the winner, Hess, just to wind her husband up! They don't have a normal relationship to begin with, but you feel cutting up his suits, hiding his grog or perhaps plain old divorce would be a more rational reaction to her anger than sating a drunken, bloodied, sweating Hess -- but hey, she's a woman.
'Hitch-Hike' is always interesting, one gripping event or confrontation follows another: people appear, disappear, fire guns, thrust knives, aim trucks, bleed, die..but the bulk of the movie is taken up by the Hess/Nero conflict. Both as ruthless and nasty as each other, and neither remotely deserving the delicious Clery; an exceptional prize who frequently resembles a piece of prime sirloin thrown between two slavering dogs.
The thrilling cinematic image of Clery, stark naked, sporting an enormous hunting rifle is one that stays strong in the memory many moons after 'Hitch-Hike's end-credits.
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