Review No.73: Transit

Pausing our world tour briefly to concentrate on two films that feel like straight-to-DVD releases however had a few days at the cinema so count towards my project. The first likes to think of it as homage to B-Movies as well as films such as The Hitcher of Duel however it doesn't really live up to the brilliance of either of those. The film I'm talking about is Transit which stars James Caviezel as Nate the head of family who is taking his wife and two sons on a camping trip in order for them to reunite following his time in jail as part of a property fraud scandal. Unbeknownst to the family a group of robbers have stashed a load of stolen money in one of their sleeping bags and now are chasing them in order to get it back. The film then becomes a typical thriller road movie with the criminals getting closer at every turn however never quite getting the money back instances including getting into a drag race with Nate and trying to kidnap his wife Robyn. The whole thing comes to a head as the criminals begin to turn on each other with bloody consequences meanwhile Robyn believes that Nate is wrapped up in this robbery somehow so abandons him on the side of the road.

As I said previously Transit aspires to be one of the classic B-movies and with its dodgy camerawork coupled with it synth soundtrack it certainly has the feel of one but that's where it ends. One of the problems for me is that the criminals are too visible and vocal because part of what made The Hitcher work so well was Rutger Hauer's muted performance. This is especially true of their leader Marek played by James Purferoy as well as former Lost actor Harold Perrineau who plays quick-talking Losada. To be fair to Transit though there are some great set pieces including the latter stages of the film however the majority of the characters are very underdeveloped for example Nate's older son is presented as no more than a stereotypical stroppy teenager who swears a lot. Caviezel does a good job as the everyman while Purferoy is a decent enough villain but there wasn't enough in Transit to mark it out as any more than just another straight-to-DVD release with a few decent moments.

Verdict: An average film deserves an average score so 5.5/10 should do the trick.