March 5th.

Duel.
For the entire first section of the film I was focused completely on the radio dialogue going on. I'm not sure if I was supposed to be. I'm still wondering if it's significant to the plot of the two vehicles in some deep mysterious way that I'm just not seeing. Surely not. Unless it would be the introduction to the theme of Alpha male roles. The radio dialogue was addressing whether or not the caller (male) was the head of the family or if his dominating wife was. At that point, the two male vehicle drivers began to have their need for speed. At the gas station the driver of the little car made a snide comment about not being "the boss" in his own household. So that could be the underlying point of the dialogue in the beginning....to introduce a reoccuring theme.

Like the radio, it's these aspects in the beginning of the film, the random and possibly irrelevant moments, that fascinate me the most. They make me look even harder than I originally was for a more complicated plot than two vehicles on the highway. At the gas station the camera seemed to make a point of a heavyset woman doing laundry. I kept waiting for her to do something important. I kept waiting on the gas station attendant to say something meaningful.

The two vibes I picked up on the most throughout were aggression and suspense. There was a strong air of mystery surrounding the driver of the tank. We didn't know who he was, we couldn't see his thought processes. This kept us interested. We as viewers were automatically on the side of the driver of the red car from the beginning, we felt his fear with him when the diesel turned homicidal. It's interesting to me that this film managed to make such a simple plot into such an attention-grabber. And -keeper.

So bizarre.

Moral of the story: Men who avoid confrontation will get chased by crazy tanker trucks until they learn how to put on their big girl panties.