Duel tells a story of a business commuter who is pursued and terrorized by the malevolent driver of a massive tractor-trailer. Or what I’d call a BIG ASS TRUCK!
David Mann is driving out of LA on his way to a meeting to a location somewhere past the desert highways of the US. After he overtakes a dirty oil truck he suddenly finds himself pursued by the faceless driver in a deadly cat and mouse game filled with speedometer shots and overload of internal monologues seemingly recorded with the shotgun mic version of a blue yeti. Besides a repetitive story structure, Spielberg manages to never fully let go of the tension-filled gas pedal and does a test run of sorts for his later masterpiece JAWS. The controlled, limited perspective from mostly David’s POV helps to establish an unknown, and therefore terrifying danger behind a faceless 20 ton heavy truck on its mindless and fixated pursuit that takes road rage to the utmost extreme.
DUEL is a great jumping-off point for Spielberg’s career and an adequate start for a Director Deep Dive as we already get the Spielberg characteristic sweeping, big camera moves, and general dynamic blocking of scenes. He also shows a great sense of direction in relation to the action that focuses on both spectacle and tension. Even though our hero isn’t faceless, he quite as well could be as we don’t get anything interesting from his character. Duel is much more an adrenaline rush whenever the pursuer closes in or our helpless little red Chrysler Valiant driver and we get to feel his anxiety creep upon us.
The biggest issues I have with the movie mainly come from the cheesy and quite unnecessary internal monologues David keeps having. I wouldn’t call Dennis Weaver’s performance great by a long shot but it’s enough to convey most of the needed information without blatantly spouting all his thoughts every few scenes. The overall story of someone being chased has its limitations and is usually reserved for a third act climax and therefore restricted in how much variety can come from it. Especially if you don’t develop the relationship between the pursued and pursuer at all. Spielberg understood that already and made a film that was roughly 15 minutes shorter in its runtime. However, Universal wanted it to be 90 minutes in order to show the TV movie in theatres too. So after production had already wrapped, Spielberg had to go back and shot additional scenes like the railroad crossing, the school bus scene, as well as the phone call at the beginning with his wife and the opening of the POV, drive through the city. I’d argue that the first pitstop for gas felt quite a filler already, but we got one of the best moments with the shoe shot from it. I guess that that scene already partly existed and only the actual phone call was added, as the shoes became an integral part of the bar scene later on.
Most apparent is this added time in the railroad crossing scene, which felt quite out of place to me especially because the following scenes didn’t match the energy at all with that altercation between the two drivers.
I like the simplicity of a manic driver looking for victims on the road. Spielberg said that the multiple license plates that are attached at the front of the truck suggest that the truck driver is a serial killer who ran down other drivers in other states.
That’s pretty much The Texas Chain Saw Massacre that gave birth to a whole new type of horror genre with antagonistic characters that we never get to fully understand. It is also what makes JAWS so great. Albeit through the technical limitations at the time, but that’s something that most film fans already know. But it is there that you have to make it work and create a sense of tension and Spielberg manages to do that quite masterfully. In 12 Days mind you. He shot this entire film in 12 days. Usually, productions take months to shoot an entire feature. But I also think that due to the time crunch we got those awful narration bits.
Nonetheless, the standout scene and by far most memorable is the standoff after David believes to have outsmarted the truck driver. Just great cinema all around. And did I spot a Psycho reference there?
Duel is thrilling in many scenes and shot in an exciting, dynamic way. The voice-over narration is superfluous and brings dramatic tension to a halt. Duel might overstay its welcome by a few minutes, nonetheless, the cinematic roller-coast-like storytelling has its low lows but also high highs and overall packs a worthwhile Action Thriller from The King of Entertainment.
