Once again, I found myself slipping a screener disc into my DVD player and hoping for the best. Rage, written and directed by Chris Witherspoon, had been hovering on my peripheral vision for a while after I’d seen the trailer for it and started to read some good reviews. A lot of people mentioned that it felt very much like a riff on Duel (which it does) but I was hoping that the whole movie would be something I could check out ASAP and heap some praise on. Thankfully, both boxes were ticked.
Because Rage is a very good, very dark and twisted, thriller. It has some great forward momentum that doesn’t really let up when events get underway and it mixes in some fun jumps and tension with the harsher, more violent moments. It’s a good movie. For a low budget, independent effort in which Chris Witherspoon acts as writer, director, actor, producer, cinematographer, editor, sound editor, visual effects chief and probably the guy who kept the stationery drawer nice and tidy . . . . . . . . . . . . . it’s an absolutely fantastic achievement that really deserves to gain a great reputation and find a sizeable audience.
The plot is simple: a young man (Dennis, played by Rick Crawford) having quite a bad day finds it made a LOT worse when he crosses paths with a menacing figure on a motorbike (played by an unseen Chris Witherspoon). Dennis can try and figure out just what he has done that’s so wrong and how to stop the biker wanting to shadow him and threaten him at every opportunity but, in the meantime, the biker just keeps on revving into his life. And things go from bad to worse.
Taking the kind of material that can be made into thriller (Duel, of course, but also movies such as Changing Lanes and The House Of Sand And Fog would be other good examples) or comedy (After Hours and Into The Night spring to my mind), Witherspoon almost judges things perfectly and, for the most part, keeps everything tense and “played straight”. Sadly, it’s only during the final 15 minutes or so when things veer too closely to the comical that the movie loses the feeling of dread ad tension it had so successfully created.
The acting from all concerned is pretty good. Rick Crawford carries most of the film and does well – he seems to nicely emulate Dennis Weaver in some moments and I’m pretty sure this is a deliberate bit of direction by Witherspoon, especially in a sequence in which Duel is directly referenced and discussed. Quite a brave choice for both director and actor but also a brilliant one, well executed and also respectful enough to the biggest influence on the film. Audrey Walker does better in the second half of the movie than she does in the first half and everyone else is just fine for the limited screentime that they have (though I wasn’t all that taken with Anna Lodej).
All of the technical aspects are very well handled. There’s a decent score that increases in rhythm as the film does. Camerawork and editing are nicely handled and there were many shots onscreen that I thought far exceeded many other movies that I’ve seen in the past year or two from companies such as The Asylum and Full Moon Productions.
All in all, I always knew I was going to score Rage quite highly once it had me hooked from almost the opening scenes. The reason I eventually dropped my rating slightly are twofold. First of all, that ending really jarred in places compared to everything that had come beforehand – it just became a bit too formulaic in a number of ways and also too over the top in a way that felt more like comedy horror (though there were plenty of other moments that were far from funny even in that final 15-20 minute stretch). Secondly, I admire cheeky little cheats here in there in movies that I watch but Rage felt cheapened by one or two false scares that were included throughout and it also recycled some footage in a way that made it feel exactly as it was – an unnecessary but cost-effective way to pad out the movie.
Let me end things, as I started them, on a positive note. Rage is a very, very good movie. Not just a very, very good low-budget movie. It doesn’t have to hide behind any labels, it’s genuinely well made. I can only hope that Chris Witherspoon keeps making films and that film reviewers can help put the word out there that he is definitely a name worth looking out for.
WRITER/DIRECTOR: CHRIS WITHERSPOON
STARS: RICK CRAWFORD, AUDREY WALKER, CHRIS WITHERSPOON, ANNA LODEJ, M. L. MALTZ, RICHARD TOPPING
RUNTIME: 85 MINS APPROX
COUNTRY: USA
Film Rating: 
