I’m sure I’d seen parts of this before – though perhaps it’s that the imagery is just so practically iconic, the red car and the dirty truck, that you see a couple of stills and feel the whole thing. There were certainly parts I hadn’t seen, however; like the whole inner monologue of the roadside diner, such an amazing scene right there. This is a very pared down version of Spielberg than we’ve become used to; you can feel the more action-oriented stuff like Indiana Jones, but more than anything it’s Jaws that comes to mind – you could almost say Jaws is “Duel with a shark” (the ending in particular, I’d love to do a side-by-side comparison of the whole flaming car going into the truck etc with the destruction of the shark; Dennis Weaver’s almost pitiful celebration dance atop the cliff is just beautiful).

There are a lot of movies like this, from The Vanishing to The Hitcher to Breakdown and they pretty much always work, it’s almost as reliable a startpoint for a movie as a conman story (Gone and the like notwithstanding, lol :P). This is really no exception: a tight, claustrophobic, beautifully designed chase that really leaves no doubt in your mind about the heights Spielberg would soar to. Apparently there’s a 90 minute cut; but hey, the original 75 minute TV cut worked fine for me this time, and at that length, really, I should be ashamed as a film fan for taking so long to give it my attention.