Movie Review: Black Cadillac (2003)

by StevenHelmer

A review of the 2003 thriller starring Randy Quaid and Shane Johnson.

Synopsis: A pair of brothers, along with their friend, makes their annual trek from Minnesota into Wisconsin to visit a remote road house. After a fight breaks out, they begin driving back to Minnesota but discover they are being followed by a mysterious black Cadillac. At first, they ignore it. However, when they pick up a stranded sheriff’s deputy, things quickly escalate as the other car tries, on several occasions, to kill them.

Who's In It?

Review

I recorded this film off of one of our movie channels a couple weeks ago mostly because I saw Randy Quaid was in it and couldn’t remember a Randy Quaid movie I didn’t like. However, we didn’t get an opportunity to watch it until last night. Unfortunately, while I can’t say it was a bad movie, it really wasn’t anything special either.

My biggest problem with this movie is it takes way too long to get started. Even though we see the Cadillac relatively early in the film, it, and the people driving it, really don’t do a whole lot until the second half of the movie. In fact, some of the early scenes reminded me a lot of the comedy "American Pie," since the bulk of the conversation seemed to be about sex and virginity.

And, even then, the scenes were still relatively tame. Simply put, a good chunk of this movie consisted of two cars drag racing along nearly-deserted country roads. On top of it, despite several claims about them having a bad winter storm (I honestly didn’t see anything I would classify other than flurries), the roads were in great shape. They didn’t even need to drive at high speeds through snow and ice.

The movie also proved to be surprisingly predictable. I knew they made a mistake picking up that deputy (Quaid) and it wasn’t hard to figure out and, at times, guess why they were being followed by the Cadillac and the deputy’s role in all of it. As a result of all of this, the movie never quite reached the level of suspense it needed to in order to be a good thriller.

I did, to be fair, like Quaid in this movie. Even though I kind of figured he was somehow involved with everything that was happening, he played his character well. Even when he was friendly, there was something about him that just didn’t seem trustworthy and, as the movie progressed, he was able to turn things up a notch and be much more menacing than I was expecting. Unfortunately, that just wasn’t enough to save this film.

Black Cadillac

What starts as a night of celebration for three friends, quickly becomes the ultimate test of survival when their car breaks down on a frozen and deserted mountain road. The mys...

View on Amazon

Final Opinion

As I said, it’s not a terrible film. But, it does take a long time to get going and, once it does, it honestly isn’t worth the wait. It was, at best, average.

My Grade: C

More By This Writer

The Lonely, Shallow Grave

Beaver Dam, WI author Steven Helmer (“Love Poems for My Wife” and “Murder by Chili”) shows off his darker side with this compilation of short stories focusing on frustration, st...

View on Amazon

Love Poems for My Wife

When Steve first met Cynthia back in 2000, he knew she was the woman for him and proposed to her just three months after their first date. Married to her since 2003, he has ofte...

View on Amazon

Updated: 10/07/2015, StevenHelmer
 
Thank you! Would you like to post a comment now?
6

Comments

Only logged-in users are allowed to comment. Login

You might also like

Movie Review: Sahara (1943)

A review of the 1943 war movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Lloyd Bridges.

Movie Review: The Sentinel (1977)

A review of the 1977 horror movie starring Chris Sarandon and Cristina Raines.

Movie Review: It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958)

A review of the 1958 science fiction film that stars Ray Corrigan as a blood-...


Disclosure: This page generates income for authors based on affiliate relationships with our partners, including Amazon, Google and others.
Loading ...
Error!