Cinema review
Directed by Dave Meyers
Starring Sean Bean, Sophia Bush, Zachary Knighton, Neal McDonough
Release date 1 June 2007

A young couple on a road trip are stalked by a madman at every turn…

There's a good chance that anybody who has seen Robert Harmon’s original version of The Hitcher will have been left severely traumatised by a certain sequence involving Jennifer Jason Leigh and two heavy duty trucks. We won’t spoil things by confirming whether said sequence makes a reappearance here – suffice to say The Hitcher of 2007 is much like The Hitcher of 1986, only a lot stupider.

As with 2003’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (another unnecessary reimagining from producer Michael Bay), every shot is framed like a picture postcard, with characters carefully placed against vast desert backdrops or shimmering skylines. No one would begrudge music video maestro Dave Meyers wanting to make a stylish picture, but the accompanying action is so dumb that it leaves the movie feeling like one long P Diddy promo (you half expect Sean Bean to launch into Bad Boy for Life at any second).

Of course, the original film was simplistic, too. But it used that simplicity to create a raw, tense and immediate picture. It was also blessed with a wonderfully creepy performance from Rutger Hauer, something Meyers’ movie sorely misses. The dependable Sean Bean does his best, but he isn’t blessed (or possibly cursed) with Hauer’s strange, evil face. As such, he comes across as your typical psycho-for-hire, rather than an unstoppable force of nature. The two 20-something leads barely register as typical victim fare – good-looking, vacant and better suited to hair commercials.

The Hitcher is competently enough made. It just doesn’t need to exist. And if you’re predicting that this review will end with a cry that you should go and rewatch the original instead, then you’re right. Matt McAllister

VERDICT: 4/10
Slick, sick, pointless.