A huge disappointment, especially considering the excellent trailer which advertised this movie (turns out the trailer just about gave everything away!). I was expecting a tight, suspenseful chase flick with plenty of violence and bloodshed. What did I get? An edgy, middle-of-the-road, "teen" thriller complete with dumb humour, dumber situations, totally implausible scenarios (just what was up with that dumb-as-nails ending?) and many, many scenes ripped of from previous, better fare like DUEL, THE HITCHER, and BREAKDOWN.

The main problem this film has is that its geared too firmly towards the "teen" market, so the plot is dumbed down, the situations overplayed and unrealistic, the humour out of place and irritating. The young characters are bland and one-dimensional, so that action man Paul Walker doesn't have a chance to make his lead anything other than a crashing bore. Steve Zahn fares a little better, injecting some life and spirit into his role as the mischievous brother, but Leelee Sobieski is generally appalling. The best actor? Ted Levine, playing the voice of trucker "Rusty Nail".

Not much of this film is surprising, just contrived. Director John Dahl aims for suspense but is hindered by plot cliché after cliché, most of them liable to make you either groan or laugh. There are a couple of novel situations along the way, but not enough, and come the routine climax I could barely be bothered to continue watching. What's the point of spending money on a new movie when the end result is just a concoction of the 'best bits' of previous films, warmed up and lacking originality, depth or excitement? None, which is why I fail to rate ROADKILL as a worthwhile watch.

Lewis Thomas (Paul Walker) is a college student who pines for his old friend Venna (Leelee Sobieski). When she tells him that she broke up with her boyfriend, he moves heaven and earth including buying a car to spend time on a road trip with her. On the way to pick her up, his loser brother Fuller (Steve Zahn) is in jail for drunk and disorderly. He picks Fuller up whom he hasn't seen in 5 years. Fuller is a jokester. First he buys a CB radio. Then he pushes Lewis to play a prank on a trucker. Lewis pretends to be a woman as he lures the trucker to a motel where a fight leaves a man near death. The guys are attacked by the psycho trucker. He seems to let them go and then they pick up Venna.

The movie has great tension. Zahn does his annoying sidekick character very well. Walker is solid as the all-American type. The movie does take a break when the boys pick up Sobieski. It had build up to such a frantic pace that it feels like the movie stalls in that section. However, it eventually ramps up and delivers quite a satisfying action conclusion. The movie exceeds my B-movie horror expectations.

The moral of this film. Never poke fun with a guy called Rusty Nails.

Lewis (Paul Walker) and his black sheep older brother Fuller (Steve Zahn) prank a truck driver, Rusty Nails. Lewis pretends to be an amorous lady called Candy Cane and will meet up with Rusty in a motel.

Only for Lewis to give the room number of a bad tempered loudmouth businessman. He is later found by the police to be barely alive.

Now Rusty is after the brothers and they have no way of escaping him. Rusty also goes after Lewis's girlfriend Venna (Leelee Sobieski.)

Co written by J J Abrams a filmmaker influenced by Steven Spielberg. This is heavily indebted to Spielberg's taut made for television movie that was released theatrically Duel.

At the time Abrams was known for writing comedies such as Filofax and Gone Fishin'. There is a juvenile comic component to the movie that sets up the story. It is Zahn that is doing most of the heavy lifting in that regard.

Paul Walker is the bland lead who finds himself and later his girlfriend in peril. There is no doubt that the tension goes up by several notches by the end. The unseen Rusty Nails looks unstoppable and has some kind of supernatural ability.