The challenge for filmmakers who do thrillers is simple: try to create tension while offering characters who will interest the audience enough to want to see what happens to them.
So far, director John Dahl hasn't had much a problem accomplishing that task, as his films "Red Rock West," "The Last Seduction" and "Rounders" have garnered good reviews and helped build his reputation.
But after making those more intimate thrillers, he's moved onto a larger scale with his latest, "Joy Ride," in which two brothers (Steve Zahn and Paul Walker) play a practical joke on an unseen trucker while on a cross-country trek and wind up in mortal danger when the deranged man decides to exact revenge on them.
"This film takes a pretty realistic situation and then blows it up to ridiculous dimensions," Dahl said during a telephone interview from Los Angeles, where he was promoting "Joy Ride" before it opened in theaters nationwide today.
"That's not to say that the movie is completely ridiculous," Dahl quickly added. "There's a real-life component to the story. I mean, who hasn't played a practical joke on someone and then regretted it? This is your worst nightmare for what could happen in those circumstances."
Though Dahl's other films have had their moments of dark humor, "Joy Ride" is perhaps his first that so heavily depends on getting laughs — in the right moments. "I'm not sure that this film would have worked if it had been completely serious. And I think that (screenwriters Clay Tarver and J.J. Abrams) must agree with that sentiment, because they wrote something here that makes you laugh and then jolts you just as quickly."
Perhaps that's why Dahl believes he was fortunate to land Zahn, an actor quickly gaining a reputation for his laugh-getting supporting roles in such films as "Happy, Texas," "Out of Sight" and "that thing you do!" "Like I said, there was already a lot of humor in the screenplay," said "Dahl, "but it went to a completely new level when Steve came aboard. He can take what's already an amusing line and make it that much funnier. That's not an easy to do."
In fact, Zahn's continual riffing resulted in more than a couple of script rewrites. "He never does a line the same way twice, which is probably a screenwriter's worst nightmare. But for a director, he's a real godsend. Steve's a (wiseacre) who you still like. He just says the
things most of us are thinking but would never say."
For the new thriller, Dahl also managed to cast two of Hollywood's rising stars — Walker (from "The Fast and the Furious") and Leelee Sobieski ("The Glass House"). "I think I've picked up a reputation as someone who likes to take risks, and happily, there are some actors out there who appreciate that."
Speaking of risky moves, Dahl keeps the film's main menace, a truck driver simply known as "Rusty Nail," unseen for the entire picture, save for a few shadowy glimpses. (The voice of the character is provided by actor Matthew Kimbrough, who's had small parts in " 'Crocodile' Dundee in Los Angeles" and "Erin Brockovich.")
"The best thrillers are ones that leave things up to your imagination," Dahl said. "As much as I love the movie 'Jaws,' which keeps the shark under wraps most of the time, how much scarier would it have been if we hadn't seen the shark at all?"
Dahl also scouted out locations to find the "creepiest" places to shoot scenes, including sequences filmed near eastbound I-80 in Utah. "I wanted to find the most isolated-looking gas station I could find. I'll leave it up to audiences as to whether I succeeded there."
Fortunately, having grown up in Montana, Dahl is quite familiar with Utah and its highways. "I love it out there. It's big, beautiful country, and any filmmaker would be a fool not to shoot there. It's got more variety than any other Western state and within just a few miles."
Dahl enjoys big action-thrillers, especially the first "Die Hard" movie, which was directed by John McTiernan. "That film set the tone for nearly all the action-thrillers that followed and popularized the wisecracking hero character. Unfortunately, no one has really done it as well since. I've got a few ideas in that regard, though."
As fascinated as he is by that genre, Dahl says he's not ready to take that big a step yet. "I haven't really decided what I'm going to do next. Maybe something smaller than this. I love to play with characters that way."
E-mail: jeff@desnews.com