Jeb Stuart directs Danny Glover, Jared Leto and Dennis Quaid in this cross country thriller where a mystery serial killer, possibly one of two men in a car lined full of Playboy photos, lures a rogue FBI agent across state lines. 

There’s two solid, decent films vying for attention here. One a Hitchcokian road movie where an overly friendly driver (Glover – strong) and a nervy hitchhiker (Leto- acceptable) try to figure each other out as they head through the snowy wastes of the States. We know one or both might turn out to be a murderer and that adds to stuffy air of tension nicely. The other movie follows The Fugitive template (Jeb Stuart wrote the brilliant remake of the TV series as well as Die Hard) as an FBI agent (Quaid – not on form) struggles against local law enforcement to track the rogue, hampered by the fact there is an election going on between rival sheriffs. That half of the narrative is a little less exciting but strong support work from Ted Levine, William Fichtner and especially R. Lee Ermey (Hey, anyone of those could play a serial killer?!) adds a bit of juice to the rote exposition. It all eventually pans out in the most predictable way with a jarringly large scale, stunt driven setpiece on board a cargo train. In all honesty this kinda thing has been done far better in the likes of No Country For Old Men or Se7en but there just about enough goodwill from the salty cast to make it chime.

6

Luc Besson directs Scarlett Johansson, Mogan Freeman and Choi Min-sik in this sci-fi thriller about a party girl whose mind is expanded by an experimental drug, giving her demigod-like superpowers.

For the first half hour it feels like the Luc Besson of Nikita and Subway and Leon is back with a vengeance. A bubblegum rush of nasty intensity as an increasingly jittery Johansson is pressganged into muling drugs by some very bad men in a Taiwan penthouse suite. The constant escalating threat, expertly orchestrated disorientation and burst of comic book mayhem mislead you into thinking that all of Lucy will be a five star thrill ride. Then with the popcorn swiftly finished, we settle into an existential drama where an increasingly oblivious, dehumanised Johansson turns into a time tripping organic super computer. While this throws up some mind bending imagery, it also completely devalues the stakes. Our herioine is no longer at risk from the chasing hit squad, she is almost oblivious to them. So when car chases and bazooka shoot outs jut awkwardly into all the cod philosophical posturing, they feel like irritants to our now dead eyed protagonist rather than obstacles.  There’s enough bang, whizz and wallop that Lucy isn’t a completely redundant Paris set exercise in style and pretension. And that gripping opening act is so, so, so good that you just have to walk off into the rain and just accept that we’ll always have Taipei.

7