Richard Franklin

(In French, On Cable TV, May 2020) As far as atmospheric concepts go, Roadgames scores an impressive success in setting much of its narrative on Australia’s south-eastern highway—a place of near-endless distances and nowhere to go as it crosses a vast desert. On this unusual backdrop, writer-director Richard Franklin sets a serial-killer thriller in which a truck driver works with a hitchhiker to unmask a serial killer who, they suspect, is travelling in the same direction as they are. It’s ludicrous and yet it sort-of-works in an ozsploitation kind of way. Having Stacy Keach as the hero-trucker protagonist is fine, but having Jamie Lee Curtis as the sidekick does work very well. Roadgames is dirty and grimy and doesn’t quite always live up to its own premises (the budget doesn’t help) but the concept is interesting and the execution is halfway decent. Even those not usually interested by serial-killer movies may be charmed by the film’s ever-moving setting and the impact this kinetic backdrop has on the narrative.