A huge disappointment, especially considering the excellent trailer which advertised this movie (turns out the trailer just about gave everything away!). I was expecting a tight, suspenseful chase flick with plenty of violence and bloodshed. What did I get? An edgy, middle-of-the-road, "teen" thriller complete with dumb humour, dumber situations, totally implausible scenarios (just what was up with that dumb-as-nails ending?) and many, many scenes ripped of from previous, better fare like DUEL, THE HITCHER, and BREAKDOWN.

The main problem this film has is that its geared too firmly towards the "teen" market, so the plot is dumbed down, the situations overplayed and unrealistic, the humour out of place and irritating. The young characters are bland and one-dimensional, so that action man Paul Walker doesn't have a chance to make his lead anything other than a crashing bore. Steve Zahn fares a little better, injecting some life and spirit into his role as the mischievous brother, but Leelee Sobieski is generally appalling. The best actor? Ted Levine, playing the voice of trucker "Rusty Nail".

Not much of this film is surprising, just contrived. Director John Dahl aims for suspense but is hindered by plot cliché after cliché, most of them liable to make you either groan or laugh. There are a couple of novel situations along the way, but not enough, and come the routine climax I could barely be bothered to continue watching. What's the point of spending money on a new movie when the end result is just a concoction of the 'best bits' of previous films, warmed up and lacking originality, depth or excitement? None, which is why I fail to rate ROADKILL as a worthwhile watch.