The scene: frozen Minnesota, the present day, Winter, in the small town of Nisswa (pronounced “niçoise”, like the salad). Lee (Alexander Arnold), a hapless delivery driver for “Rabbit Eats”, wants to pack in his job and go into business for himself by purchasing a food truck. The problem is, he’s also a compulsive gambler and is in deep debt with a local crime lord (Nadine Higgin), who shows up at the start of the film to threaten him and break the bowl of his poor goldfish, Reggie. The fish itself is fine though and, since the hustle never stops, Lee simply puts the poor thing in a bag of water and sets out on his routine deliveries. But soon he has bigger problems, as he finds himself menaced by an enormous, monstrous snowplow truck which Lee dubs “Mr. Plow”, in an apt yet distracting Simpsons reference.
And so ensues a game of cat-and-mouse in the time-honoured tradition not only of Duel, to which this film is obviously heavily indebted, but even Duel derivatives from twenty years ago such as Joy Ride and Jeepers Creepers, making this a third-generation imitation. Besides, Duel is not the only Spielberg film on the creators’ minds, with a kitchen setpiece late in the proceedings making visual allusions to Jurassic Park, for whatever reason – not that JP isn’t another masterpiece of suspense, but it doesn’t exactly gel with the expected “road games” vibe. The film is overall competently made aside from that and a couple of other oddities; we meet Nathan (Liam James Collins), a deputy with a comedy “Minnesota Nice” accent – think Fargo – that seems to wander the United States from sea to shining sea, and even to make a couple of detours to the U.K. and Ireland. Much, much better in his rôle is Skins veteran Alexander Arnold, who makes for both a sympathetic lead despite his obvious flaws, and a convincing American, for this is a British production – with a Finnish writer-director – and the cast is nearly entirely composed of British and Irish actors. Some of these do fine; others less so, but Arnold is just about able to keep us invested throughout the tired, occasionally absurd proceedings.