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| The intensity screams at you from this painted poster for Steven Spielberg's Duel |
QUICK REVIEW:
A salesman on his way to a client meeting is under the boot at home, and in the burning hot sun on his long way to the meeting, he's about to have a real shitty day: Through the dessert, he is terrorized by a 40 ton truck with a mad driver.
Master filmmaker Steven Spielberg (The Sugarland Express (1974)) already masters elementary suspense here in his second feature, a TV movie for ABC, which was subsequently lengthened into a theatrical feature. (Spielberg's first was his episode in The Name of the Game TV movie series, LA 2017 (1971).)
Richard Matheson (Dracula (1974)) adapted his own short story for the film. The story also includes the theme of a modern family life of compromise and the instinctive frustration of the modern man, which reappear in later Spielberg works.
Dennis Weaver (McCloud (1970-77)) plays the unlucky salesman terse and naturalistic, and the many shots around the chase are fantastic.
The few detractors: SPOILER The ending seems abrupt and is in need of a giant explosion in my opinion. And Billy Goldenberg's (18 Again! (1988)) score seems, at times, like a ripoff of Bernard Herrman's classic Psycho (1960) score.
Related reviews:
2011 in films - according to Film Excess
Steven Spielberg: War Horse (2011) - Spielberg visits WWI with problematic horse drama
Super 8 (2011) - Abrams' nostalgic family crowdpleaser (producer)
Band of Brothers - TV mini-series (2001) - WWII-sacrifice and -comradeship portrayed with skill and integrity (producer)
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) - A robot fairy tale with both heart and mind
Amistad (1997) or, Must... Free... Slaves!
Twilight Zone The Movie (1983) - Fear takes many forms in tragedy-struck anthology
1941 (1979) - Spielberg's bizarre 'comedy spectacular' sinks like a rock
Watch the trailer for the film here
Cost: 450,000 $
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertainty
[But the film was a hit: As ABC's Movie of the Week, it won an Emmy and was nominated for another, as well as a Golden Globe as Best TV Movie. Spielberg went 3 days over the 10 day shoot, but based on the strength and popularity of the film, he was given two more shooting days to give the film a longer running time, (buffing it from the TV version's 74 minutes to the theatrical version's 90), so the film could be released in theaters, mainly abroad. Duel launched Spielberg's career onwards, and he has once said to Weaver in an interview that he watches it twice a year "to remember what I did."]
What do you think of Duel?
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