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Black Cadillac (John Murlowski, 2002)
Once Black Cadillac gets on the road, it speeds up considerably. The young actors have decent chemistry together and that makes them more tolerable once they start cracking under stress. As the mysterious Cadillac that trails the teens grows increasingly aggressive toward them, the movie actually gets kind of spooky. Before long, the group picks up Randy Quaid, who plays a hitchhiking police officer, which does little to dissuade their pursuant. They start stretching their Saab to its mechanical limits as they drive across frozen lakes and backwoods roads “deeper into nowhere” in an attempt to lose their pursuant. If the final showdown proves to premise to be ultimately preposterous, there’s no denying that the ride taken in getting there has been fun, with the exception of a few lame emotional confrontations and an macho attitude that’s utterly unconvinced with the emotional issues of the lone female character. Though Black Cadillac has about it the whiff of a direct-to-video production, that doesn’t make it bad. A relatively inoffensive and slight film, it manages to provide a moment or two of fun and fright along the way. * * 1/2 04-27-03
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In the tradition of such stripped down
stalker-car thrillers as Joy Ride, Jeepers Creepers, and Duel,
the mother of them all, comes Black
Cadillac, a better than average entry in the genre that avoids getting
caught up in too many unnecessary subplots and manages to deliver a fair amount
of uninterrupted thrills as a result. Taking place in a somewhat amusing version
of Wisconsin-cum-hell, the movie finds three Midwestern teens attempting to
outwit the unseen driver of the titular automobile as they try to find their way
home, across the Minnesota state line. The movie starts off on the wrong foot
with an over-the-top brawl at a rural roadhouse that the kids have snuck into
using fake ID. Though a title card notes that the film is “Based on a true
story”, the fist fighting on display in the opening moments feels pretty
distant from any reality that I’ve experienced. I don’t know the details of
the events that formed the basis of this story, but considering what happens
once the boys start home, I’m sure the movie’s link to reality is about as
tenuous as it was in the Coen Brothers’ Fargo