Film Review: Hit and Run (2008)

SYNOPSIS:

Mary Murdock, a college student, thinks she’s hit and killed a cat with her car driving home drunk from a party. She is horrified beyond words when she gets home and discovers a man’s nearly dead body impaled on the bumper of her Jeep. Terrified and irrational, Mary is faced with a series of decisions that determine her fate.

REVIEW:

Directed By: Enda McCallion
Written By: Diane Doinol-Valcroze and Arthur Flam
Starring: Laura Breckenridge, Kevin Corrigan, Christopher Shand, Megan Anderson, Michael Gell

Drinking and Driving is not only illegal, but causes accidents that will haunt you for the rest of your life if reckless. In Enda McCallion’s Hit and Run, the consequences of a deadly hit and run scenario is played out splendidly in this bloody tale of psychological angst after a drunken driving experience from Hell. Camera angles giving an up-close-and-personal point of view attributes to a sense of being a part of the action and grief in the film that not many films tend to do.

First scene sets the movie, as we follow a tray of two freshly filled shots of alcohol going to a table full of young, attractive women. A shot is immediately handed to our protagonist, Mary Murdock (Laura Breckenridge), and she unwillingly takes the shot. She immediately has the urge to leave, and is met outside by Rick (Christopher Shand.) He urges her to stay with him to have some fun, but all that she wants to do is leave and promises she is “okay to drive.” Here starts some of the first up-close-and-personal driving scenes, where she is enjoying some loud music and cruising down the road. The beginning credits roll as Mary sings Modest Mouse’s “Float On,” which seems like a good fit for a song since the lyrics speak of hitting cars and everything being alright.

Unfortunately, everything is not all right when Mary sees a tire in the middle of the road, and swerves out into a forest barely hitting the trees. Freaked out and still a little tipsy, she checks her Jeep and sees nothing is damaged or hit. Mary makes it to her home, and makes sure all signs of drinking of driving are covered up by spraying breath freshener upon getting out of her jeep. Immediately, the light goes out in the garage, and Mary is confused by the happening. She walks inside, increasingly paranoid from the garage incident, and finds her parents are away on a trip.

After a few hours of sleep, she starts to hear noises from the garage that awaken her from her slumber. After investigating her downstairs, she walks out into the garage and gazes at her jeep. Her jaw drops in horror when she finds a dying man hooked on to the bumper of the front of her Jeep. The dying man reaches out towards her for help, and she grabs the nearest golf club to hit him repeatedly in shock and defense. Not only could she get in trouble for hitting a guy, but also the fact that she was drunk while doing it would provide enough for all kinds of jail time and self pity. 

Irrationally, Mary makes a quick decision to cover the male in a blanket, and bury him out on Clover Road. Ever since then, she is haunted by nightmares of being completely covered in blood and reruns of commercials/flyers of the missing man she hit, Timothy Emser (Kevin Corrigan.) When Emser comes back from the grave, he stalks Mary, and captures her to try every attempt to make her feel as guilty as possible. He tries to simulate the pain he went through by attaching her body to the front of her Jeep, and driving carelessly down the road. This causes Mary much distress, and a complete mental breakdown. Her psychological downfall contributes many mistakes that quickly teach her the lesson that not only drinking and driving is bad, but also the combination of hit and run accident is devastating. 

There were plenty twists and turns that made this movie very enjoyable to watch. The bird’s eye view camera shots from when Mary is driving to when Emser comes back for his revenge by tying Mary to the front of the Jeep driving through oncoming traffics was an interesting point of view. It gave an excellent role reversal, as the enemy was now the victim and got to feel what happened when he was attached to the front of the bumper. Breckenridge did an excellent job portraying an emotional distraught young female, and appeared completely out of her mind by the end of the film. The only part I found comical was when she was running from being stalked by Emser, she somehow manages to trip and tumbles down the stairs. I wasn’t really sure why or how she tripped, but ends up stabbing herself in the ankle with a knife, which troubles her while trying to get away. There are few scenes of blood and gore, but there are plenty of painful moments of being strapped on to the front of a car to being completely obliterated by the wheels of Jeep. 

Enda McCallion’s Hit and Run is a horrifying reality check to people who take their chances by disobeying the law. When you get behind the wheel of a vehicle while intoxicated, you not only endanger yourself, but also you are endangering the innocent people around you. Even though Emcer in the movie eventually loses his mind while going after Mary, he was completely oblivious to the fact that one day he would be hit by a drunk driver. Through mistaken actions, Mary learns that she should have done the right thing and reported what happened to the correct authorities, because her mistakes come back to haunt her in the worst way conceivable.