OCTANE

US, 2003, 91 minutes, Colour.
Madeleine Stowe, Mischa Barton, Norman Reedus, Bijou Phillips, Jonathan Rhys Meyers.
Directed by Marcus Adams.

Octane may have seemed very good on the page. Otherwise, how did it lure such a high-powered cast? On the other hand, the contract and the pay may have been irresistible.

The film is a vampire film – but, rather absurd.

Madeleine Stowe, looking thin, gaunt and worried, is a divorcee driving her teenage daughter home from a meeting with her former husband. They clash. They also pick up a hitchhiker, played by Bijou Phillips. When she loses a CD, they return to find it and return it to her. This fails and they continue their journey. However, they encounter a lot of young people in a diner and are puzzled, especially with a recovery man who seems to be following them (Norman Reedus).

The film involves the daughter, angry with her mother, going off to join the backpacker and another group – and, without seeming motivation, becoming involved in bizarre behaviour with the leader of a group in an industrial plant. He is played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

The film then spends a lot of time with the mother trying to recover her resisting daughter. Vampire aspects emerge late in the day.

While the film does show the clash between mother and daughter as well as the concern of the mother, her ex-husband betraying her by telling the police that she was on medication and erratic, there is some interest in the characterisation. However, the daughter does not make sense at all. The man trying to help the couple is trying to avenge the death of his sister in this group. Jonathan Rhys Meyers, after making Bend it Like Beckham and before The Tudors, is a bizarre vampire.

The film was written by Stephen Volk, relies on crass language rather than intelligent dialogue. It was directed by Marcus Adams who directed a number of action films. Not essential viewing.