“You never know. You just never know. You just go along figuring some things don’t change – like being able to drive on a public highway without somebody trying to murder you. And then one stupid thing happens – 20-25 minutes out of your whole life – and all the ropes that kept you hanging in there get cut loose. And it’s like there you are – right back in the jungle again.”
Wrong place, wrong time. You’ve heard that expression, haven’t you? Someone just happens to be somewhere where something bad is about to happen. Whatever the example may be, whenever I hear that, I always wonder, is it, really? What if that person was meant to be there, right there, at that very moment? But ‘meant to be’ by whom, or what, then? Is there any sort of governing force in the universe? And if so, does it have anything resembling a plan? Or is life to unfold itself willy-nilly, and do we just have to deal with whatever it’s deemed to throw at us? I mean, what does it all mean!? (For those of you that think this is all some airy-fairy nonsense, try to imagine what your life would have been like if you were born just one minute earlier or later than you actually were. Or if Einstein was. Or Hitler.)
I’m willing to bet something valuable that David Mann (Dennis Weaver), at some point, asked himself questions like these. “If only I’d left the house a few minutes later…” “Why didn’t I take the interstate?” As it happens, he didn’t. He’s here, on this very day, on this very road, at this precise junction in time and space. Driving through 1971 America, a middle-aged salesman in his cheap Plymouth sedan, on his way to meet a client. An archetype, if you will, of sheer averageness. It’s established early on through a phone call with his wife that Mann is about as far from your big Hollywood action hero as he could possibly be. A coward, you say? Well, maybe. Or just your average human being who is trying to make it through life without getting stomped on too much. He is… just a Mann.
Enter the truck driver. He is also ‘just a man,’ but on the very opposite end of the scale. Where Mann is this very generic middle-of-the-road nice guy, the truck driver is anything but. Why, we never learn. Maybe all those long and lonely hours on the road made him go insane. Maybe he was born a psycho that just happened to become a truck driver. Maybe there are no reasons at all. Wrong time, wrong place. Whatever the case may be, the truck driver is an insane, murderous psycho, driving this thundering 1955 Peterbilt nightmare of rust and diesel, hellbent on dragging Mr. Mann down with him in a spectacular spiral of violence and madness.
I love this movie. I love everything about it. How very plain 70s it all is. How very well established it gets right from the beginning that this starts out as just your average day in life, like you had thousands and thousands before: getting up in the morning, getting into your car, driving to work… On a nice summer day, and once you’re out of town, the traffic gets light, so you can zoom along nicely… The radio’s on, people are talking… Everything’s… just fine, you know? Just a day. Just a life. Just a man. And then… Well, then The Duel happens, of course. Because this was ‘just’ a TV movie, they gave direction to some young, new guy named Steven Spielberg. I guess he just happened to be at the right place at the right time.
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