I chose to review Swerve because it sounded like a few other films I had seen: The Hitcher, Joy Ride, even a bit of Death Proof. Besides, after seeing Wolf Creek, any thriller set in the Australian outback has to be decent, right?
The basic premise of the story is that Colin (David Lyons) plays witness to a car wreck involving a man in a red car and Jina (Emma Booth). Jina comes out fine but poor Mr. Red Car unfortunately loses his head.
In the wreckage, Colin comes upon a briefcase filled with cash, which he takes with him to report the accident to local officer, Frank (Jason Clarke). To make matters worse, there is a sexual tension between Jina and Colin and Frank, who is also Jina’s husband, is a jealous guy. Add a psycho in search of the cash, and we have ourselves a little thriller.
My initial idea that Swerve would be like The Hitcher was incorrect. Swerve promised to be a great thriller and failed to keep that promise. My attention waned early on and I had a hard time bringing it back. I blame this on the fact that the characters aren’t particularly likeable because there is no opportunity to really get to know them. Nothing that happens to any of them gave me any cause to grieve or rejoice because I really just didn’t care.
The film starts out really slow and almost pointless and then takes a turn for the stupid with an out of left field attempt at a plot twist. The more the film went on, the more I realized they were trying for something like Seven Psychopaths or No Country for Old Men but severely failed in that attempt.
The psycho wasn’t very psychotic. The jealous husband and hot wife pairing was cliché. The murders weren’t even suspenseful.
To say I didn’t like Swerve would be a pretty safe assumption. I think there were many opportunities to make it an edge-of-your-seat kind of thriller but it just didn’t happen. I had to force myself to finish the film in hopes that it would end better than it began but, sadly, that was giving it too much credit.
The moral I might have been expected to walk away with would be “Know when to mind your own business.” I should’ve done that in the first place and avoided this film all together.
