A lot of people slam me for digging Lost in translation, some do it for political reasons; It's cool to say that a cool movie sucks, while others back it up with some well though out words. In both cases i have the same defence; I love movies who keep it simple, no fuzz, no loudness, no nothing, a movie that follows a fairly simple plot and doesn't divert along the way. I don't' want a flick that falls into question mark genre, meaning that when you flip the dvd-cover it says 

• Genre: Action/Adventure/Comedy/Thriller/Drama/Porn (Yeah, i added the last one as an exaggeration, but it makes the point)

It's not unknown that a lot of new movies are walking across genres, not because the want a broader audience, but more because it makes a story more human. During the course of a 2 hour long movie, one is bound to spit in a healthy amount of some other genre, comedy for instance. Despite the fact that "Lord of the rings" is based on a book that clearly involves a lot of funny comments, would it be possible to make the movie likeable if Gandalf didn't feed us the occassional grin?

For those who are crazy about Lord of the rings, the answer is NO! For those who don't give a rats butt about "LOTR", the answer is YES and please read on.

The task isn't easy, like how can one add a couple of funny lines in a horror movie without getting a "comedy" side stamp? I would say that it's a matter of quantity;

• one to three funny lines = Ok
• four to six funny lines = pushing the envelope
• seven or more = /comedy
  

I know that it's impossible to not get a slash genre, a horror is ofcourse also a action film, a thriller might also be a drama, and so on and so forth. This is ok, but what's not ok is a true comedy that also involves scary aspects, or a drama that has too much action, or a porn that has too much of any genre (Yupp, the same exaggeration). I'll start talking against my own remarks by noting that the crossovers are pretty damn entertaining, but it's not said that it's the only solution to the problem, meaning that a couple of purebreds during a season are well needed.

Hmm, do i have any examples on these purist movies? Sure enough, "The Hitcher" from 1986, but before we look at the movie, lets look at the two main characters of the feature. The good guy: C. Thomas Howell, and the bad guy: Rutger Hauer. They both fall into my good old Christopher Lambert bucket. Mr.Howell isn't a unknown story, a young actor who for some reason burns out before reaching stardom. I think a good comparison would be Patrick Dempsey (Can't Buy Me Love, Scream 3), he also started his career with some pretty good movies during the 80s, but fell nose first onto the 90s. It might be a question of taste, but i think that most of the movies C. Thomas Howell made in the beginning of the 80s were pretty damn good, he even starred in E.T for craps sake! With Soul man and Outsiders on his resume, one would think that he would get better roles, sadly "The Hitcher" remains as his best work. My personal fascination with him probably comes with all the teen movies he made in the 80s, a time when direct-to-video wasn't a bad word and Secret Admirer got good reviews.

And then there was Rutger Hauer, a funny nut with a soft spot for B-movies, or maybe B-movies have a soft spot for him? Either way, this stranger with a funny grin had a flying start with Nighthawks, Blade runner and Ladyhawke, but has later only managed to reach the quality of good video rentals, nothing more, nothing less. Regardless of what people might think of his work; his acting is awesome and i love his work, i'm therefore proud to say that Split Second is a darn good flick!

...For those who have survived the Lord of the Ring and Split Second comments, please read on...

I haven't had the pleasure of watching "The Hitcher" for several years now; the last time was probably at the end of the 80s. To be honest, i'm a bit scared of watching it, not because of its content, but because of its age. Lately I've used a lot of weekends watching oldies, and I've noticed that some of my favourites from that decade are a bit outdated so to say. Death Wish II wasn't the same in DVD quality, with enhanced sound and a clearer sight of the bad hair dues. I'm already dreading the day I buy American Ninja on DVD, it's almost as if one feels the need to slap oneself with a wet salmon across the forehead for watching those movies in the first place.

The plot of "The Hitcher" is pretty simple and is therefore, as I told you earlier, very intriguing. Jim Halsey is transporting a car for a dealership to California, it's a long drive and he finds himself falling asleep behind the wheel. With a sense of "Aha!" he thinks that picking up a hitchhiker might help. On a rainy road in the middle of the night, Jim picks up a character called John Ryder. Unluckily for Jim, John isn't the talking type, at least not for starters. It doesn't take long before he notices something rather odd about the hitcher, especially when he drives by an old VW and the hitcher steps on Jim's leg causing him to speed up. The "Aha!" feeling is destroyed when John tells him that he killed the owner of the VW and that Jim would soon suffer the same fate. After some dramatic dialogue Jim manages to kick the crazed man out right before he was planning on slitting his throat.

That's the complete backdrop of the movie, Jim will now drive through the open desert roads to California with John high on his tail, meaning that Ryder has a tendency to show up and kill people who get in touch with Jim. Even the following morning, when Jim thinks he's gotten rid of the lunatic and is starting to get in good mood again, he sees a family drive by in a station wagon. He sees John Ryder in the backseat of the car, playing with the children while giving of a cynical grin to Jim. A couple of miles later Jim finds the family killed.

The fun thing about this movie is that it doesn't hurry along, and neither is it too slow, it has the perfect rhythm; never giving off too much or too little and keeping the audience on their toes throughout the whole movie. Even when you think that Jim will get a break, in comes the hitcher killing anything that interact with him. There is a beautiful scene where Jim is sitting at a roadside diner eating some French fries, again thinking that he's saved after talking to some cops, I won't give away the whole scene, but this is for me one of the greatest scenes in 80s cinema.

Rutger Hauers role as the psychotic killer that follows the poor kid around is without flaw. He's almost like a zombie that slowly stalks Jim, always being one step ahead of anything his new toy tries to do. Nothing beats some good old 80s pump action shotgun when it comes to action, blend in some exploding gas stations and you've got something. "The Hitcher" is one of the greatest psychological thrillers of all time; this fact is helped along with C. Thomas Howell's character who is portrayed as a pushover, more like your average guy in other words. One almost feels sad for the kid; especially after the girl-hung-between-the-truck-scene…you will have to watch it to know what I mean.