Time: 90 minutes
Age Rating:
Cast:
Dennis Weaver as David Mann
Director: Steven Spielberg

David (Dennis Weaver), a businessman, passes by an old tanker truck in a dessert while travelling for a meeting. The driver of the truck is a psychopath who finds David’s overtaking offensive and decides to kill him.

I knew of Duel as being an early Steven Spielberg movie where a man is chased by a truck, and it turns out to actually be his debut film. Honestly I wasn’t really expecting much from it despite the director attached, given that it is a TV movie and seemed low budget. It actually turned out to be a lot better than I thought it would be, simple, yet very tense and effective.

The plot is rather simple, a business commuter is tailed and terrorized by a psychotic truck driver for no specified reason, typical cat and mouse plot. Really its strength lies in its simplicity, its minimalistic but also so tight, effective and suspenseful, and is all around a well crafted thriller. The story is mostly told visually and makes minimal use of dialogue throughout. There is an eerie atmosphere and horror overtones that it retains throughout its runtime, which works as you really get caught up easily in the protagonist’s paranoia and anxiety. In much of the plot, logic is thrown out the window for pure emotion, and this actually works in favour to the movie because it really does feel like a nightmare that never ends. The movie isn’t particularly deep, and there’s not really any themes to delve into here, but that’s really not an issue at all. In terms of issues, even at 90 minutes, the movie can get repetitive regarding the scenarios at times. The pacing is mostly perfect, except for a diner sequence that drags on a bit too long. That’s really it though.

Dennis Weaver delivers a very good performance as the terrified motorist being chased by the mysterious tanker truck, whose driver remains mostly unseen throughout the film. You really see Weaver slowly losing his mind as the film progresses. As said earlier, there isn’t much dialogue, so often times he has to just convey his character’s feelings all by himself, and he definitely succeeds at this.

As said earlier, this is Steven Spielberg’s first movie, and it’s quite impressive considering that there was a lot of pressure on him while he was making it. It had multiple limitations too, it was made for TV production, it had a budget of about $450,000, and the filming was completed in 13 days. Despite all that, the end result is quite good, and quite a strong debut film overall. Spielberg manages to successfully let his creativity and flair run wild despite those limitations. It’s not necessarily identifiable as a film of his when you look at the rest of his filmography, but it’s still remarkable seeing what he was able to achieve, especially when taking into account that it is his first movie. The cinematography is incredible here, the use of camera angles and wide angle shots are clever. That paired with the masterful editing creates this strong atmosphere that only gets more tense as the film progresses. The chase scenes are particularly tense and shot incredibly well. Something that also needs to be talked about is the truck. The truck in this movie is a menacing and unstoppable character in itself, and what Spielberg manages to accomplish here with such limited resources is nothing short of impressive. You never learn what his motive is, and you don’t even see the truck driver or his face, adding a sense of mystery to him, and putting the audience in the same view as the protagonist. In some ways you can see the DNA of Jaws being laid here, especially with the role of the truck in this movie. Jaws may have been his big breakout film, but in some ways without Duel, Jaws may never have existed. The one technical aspect I wasn’t so keen on was the use of voiceover, mainly in the aforementioned diner scene. Out of nowhere this voiceover comes to explain what the lead character is thinking in that moment, and it’s not needed given that Dennis Weaver does enough to convey that.

Duel is a really good debut from Steven Spielberg. It’s not one of his best movies by any means, but it is an incredibly straightforward yet thrilling movie, with a solid lead performance from Dennis Weaver, and a direction that elevates the movie to a much higher level. It may be hard to find, but check it out if you can, especially if you are a fan of Spielberg.