| Joyride | |
| Starring: | Tobey Maguire Amy Hathaway Wilson Cruz Christina Naify Adam West Benicio Del Toro |
| Director: | Quinton Peeples |
| Producer: | Jon Juhlin Laurent Zilber |
| Cinematography: | S. Douglas Smith |
| Editing: | Cindy Parisotto |
| Distributor: | Live Entertainment |
| Runtime: | 93 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
Joyride is a 1997 American film directed by Quinton Peeples.
J.T., the bored slacker son of a motel owner, begins flirting with a visitor of the motel named Tanya, an aspiring model. James, J.T.'s best friend, gets drunk with J.T. and eventually steals the car of a motel visitor named Ms. Smith (played by Christine Naify[1]) . J.T., Tanya, and James drive around their dead-end town laughing and enjoying the night. They soon find a body in the trunk of the stolen car. J.T. and Tanya dump the body of the person in the lake.[2] The body belonged to the town's doctor. It is revealed that Ms. Smith killed the doctor and is a professional assassin.[3] They logically conclude that the car will not be reported stolen so J.T. decides to keep it. Later, two local bullies who harassed James and J.T. start destroying the car. Tanya gets the bully's baseball bat and they start kicking and beating them out of anger. The next day, the cops find the body and visit J.T.. Ms. Smith vouches and helps them evade suspicion from the detectives. She then threatens the lives of their families if her car isn't returned that night. Later, she kills a man who attempted to rape Tanya, and gets a photo of her at the crime scene, which could incriminate her. J.T. kisses Tanya in the car right before Ms. Smith arrives with James. She then tells Tanya to tie them both up and kill them. She whispers them both instructions to fake their deaths and it was successful. Ms. Smith takes Tanya and the car with her as she leaves. She later tells Tanya that she knew that they weren't dead and that it was a test for Tanya that she passed. They destroy the car in an explosion and Tanya becomes her apprentice.
On November 11, 1997, Warner Bros. Records released the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack for Joyride.[4] The 17 tracks are:
On Rotten Tomatoes it has a score of 20% based on reviews from 5 critics.[5]
The A.V. Club called it "A depressingly mediocre little film"[6]
On September 24, 2002, Artisan Entertainment released Joyride on DVD.