Midnight Ride

Written and directed by former stuntman Bob Bravler, a violent road thriller movie that tries to compensate for a worrisome lack of inventiveness by haphazardly ripping off ideas and scenarios from a diverse group of classic genre films, a tactic right up the alley of Ovidio G. Assonitis, a producer who’s always had a knack for making spurious films designed to ride the wave of other megahits.

This time Robert Harmon’s “The Hitcher” (1986) was undoubtedly the prototype, although it’s possible to pick out elements that can be traced back to the “Mad Max” saga and even to Tobe Hooper’s “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” (1974). Unfortunately, beyond the evocative nighttime scenes, “Midnight Ride” turns out to be so insipid and lacking in suspense that its unfortunate viewers are lulled into a persistent state of lethargy. The blame goes to a director unaccustomed to pacing an action film, a cast at the mercy of an agonizingly histrionic Mark Hamill (and let’s not forget that depressing cameo by an unenergetic Robert Mitchum), and a rough, jerky editing job that too often makes it tough to figure out what’s going on.

The word “please” is so frequently repeated in the dialogue, it stands out, and not in a good way (‘Please try to understand’, ‘Please don’t call me’, ‘Please get out’, ‘Don’t touch me, please’, ‘Take it easy, please’, ‘Let me go, please’, ‘Oh, God, please believe me’, ‘Quiet, please, we’re in a hospital’). Even the base message isn’t the greatest, something along the lines of: Do you want to leave your man because he’s an a-hole and always takes you for granted? Don’t do it because even worse men are running around out there!