Throttle (film)
Encyclopedia
Throttle is a 2005
2005 in film
- Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2005...

 American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 thriller film starring Grayson McCouch
Grayson McCouch
Grayson McCouch is an American actor. He is known for his role as Dusty Donovan on the daytime soap opera As the World Turns.-Life and career:...

. Other cast members include Adrian Paul
Adrian Paul
Adrian Paul Hewett , better known as Adrian Paul, is an actor best known for his role on the television series Highlander: The Series as Duncan MacLeod. In 1997, he founded The Peace Fund charitable organization.-Early life:...

 and Amy Locane
Amy Locane
-Career:Locane was born in Trenton, New Jersey. She starred as one of the original cast on the television series Melrose Place, in which she played Sandy, an aspiring actress who waited tables at the show's bar hangout, Shooters. She left Melrose Place after its first 12 episodes of season one and...

. It was filmed entirely in Denver, Colorado
Denver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...

. It has several hidden references to a similar movie, Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...

's Duel. Its tagline is: Park at your own risk, or Park and die!.

Plot

Financial analyst
Financial analyst
A financial analyst, securities analyst, research analyst, equity analyst, or investment analyst is a person who performs financial analysis for external or internal clients as a core part of the job.-Job:...

 Tom Weaver (Grayson McCouch
Grayson McCouch
Grayson McCouch is an American actor. He is known for his role as Dusty Donovan on the daytime soap opera As the World Turns.-Life and career:...

) is a troubled man. He has recently broken off a potential affair with a co-worker named Rebecca. He is also arguing with himself if he wants to continue with a shady ten million dollar business deal with his boss. He has also discovered identical motel keys in his wife, Molly's purse and his boss's car, leading him to believe that she is having an affair. He confronts her about it and she denies this. He lies to her about where he is going and heads to his building to complete the deal to hopefully get himself rich.

Under heavy levels of stress, Tom shouts at the kind old security guard, Eddie before going into the building. At midnight, Tom goes five levels down in the building's underground
Underground
Underground most commonly refers to:* The regions beneath the surface of the EarthUnderground may also refer to:-Places:* London Underground, a rapid transit system* The Underground , a Christian-affiliated concert venue...

 parking garage to E-5. Tom argues with his boss about it, who tells him that he has gotten in too deep to back out now, as millions would be lost should the process be interrupted. Tom quits the deal and leaves to his car. He tries to call his wife when he discovers that he is too deep in the garage to get service. Tom discovers that his car has been vandalized and left immobile. Tom realizes he's not alone. Watching and waiting, a massive 6000 pound black SUV truck
Truck
A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, with the smallest being mechanically similar to an automobile...

 whose driver sits hidden behind a veil of tinted glass. The driver is a psychotic killer with only one goal: Not letting Tom get out alive. the driver at first taunts him, chasing him, honking the horn, and flashing its lights, and Tom goes to the stairwell. However, it has been chained shut from the inside. Worse yet, the elevator
Elevator
An elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...

s are shut down for the night. Tom finds a a fellow co-worker who is leaving and begs for a ride. Frightened, the woman maces him and flees. Armed with only a tire iron, Tom goes into the bathroom to wash the pepper spray out of his eyes, and discovers that the driver has attached a hose to the truck's exhaust pipe, and Tom flees his only safe place. Tom goes to a nearby truck where the driver appears and tries to mow him down with his truck. He manages to get away from the truck by hiding behind a construction truck. He climbs on top of the truck and manages to climb on top of the truck, where he discovers the dead body of the woman who had earlier maced him.

The truck's driver is willing to kill anybody who gets in the way of their goal. Tom realizes that he must outwit his pursuer and escape the garage while trying to figure out who wants him dead before it is too late. The driver realizes that Tom is on top of the car and bucks him into another car, before ramming it into the wall. Tom manages to flee and discover a repo man who also sees him as a threat. The repo man attempts to attack him, but he is thrown onto construction equipment and is impaled on nails. Tom believes the man is the driver, but he was actually the only man who could help him. Tom flees the path of the oncoming truck and hides in a parked car. He then sees Victor, the other security guard who knows his would-be mistress, Rebecca and appears to have a grudge against him. Victor sees the damage and attempts to arrest him, but Tom threatens him, right before Victor is mowed down by the truck. Tom flees and is nearly crushed behind a wall by the truck.

A paranoid and terrified Tom realizes anybody could be a suspect. He escapes and manages to call Eddie on Victor's walkie talkie. He hears a loud crash and the line goes dead, leading him to believe that Eddie has too been killed. He steals a gun from his boss's car and finds his boss, who has been stabbed and tells him that his wife never went through with the affair, which she had no part in. He dies right as he tells Tom that he has made sure that he will not be leaving the garage alive. A suspenseful game of cat and mouse
Cat and mouse
Cat and mouse, often expressed as cat-and-mouse game, is an English-language idiom dating back to 1675 that means "a contrived action involving constant pursuit, near captures, and repeated escapes." The "cat" is unable to secure a definitive victory over the "mouse", who despite not being able to...

 ensues as the huge truck chases him through the garage's levels. Tom continues to hide and flee from the truck, before eventually hiding under the truck, which backs into his leg, pinning him to the ground.

The killer is revealed to be Eddie, who killed everyone because he finally snapped when he realized that Tom was pretending to like him, when everyone else didn't bother to mask their dislike for him. The garage doors open and Molly comes inside. Tom, despite a broken leg, manages to rescue Molly, who had been bound and gagged inside the toll booth, right before Eddie smashes it with the truck. Eddie is about to run them both down right as the police, whom Tom had called earlier at the top where there was cell phone service, arrive. Tom makes sure Molly is safe before borrowing a police car to finally destroy the truck with. He totals the truck, grabs a gun, and prepares to shoot Eddie through the windshield. The police stop this and open the door to discover that he has shot himself. Molly and Tom embrace at the top when Molly asks him "where did you park?".

Duel references

Although the two settings and characters are virtually different, it is no doubt that Throttle references a similar 1971 film called Duel, which was Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...

's first movie. Some of these include:
  • The main character's last name is Weaver, a reference to Dennis Weaver
    Dennis Weaver
    William Dennis Weaver was an American actor, best known for his work in television, including roles on Gunsmoke, as Marshal Sam McCloud on the NBC police drama McCloud, and the 1971 TV movie Duel....

     who played David Mann, the main character in Duel,
  • An actor that looks identical to Dennis Weaver (the same clothing, the same mustache, the same hairdo, the same sunglasses, and the same car, a red
    Red
    Red is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths of light discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength range of roughly 630–740 nm. Longer wavelengths than this are called infrared , and cannot be seen by the naked eye...

     Plymouth Valiant
    Plymouth Valiant
    The Plymouth Valiant is an automobile manufactured by the Plymouth division of Chrysler Corporation in the United States from 1960 to 1976. It was created to give the company an entry in the compact car market emerging in the late 1950s...

    ) drives by and looks at Tom ominously.
  • A painter's truck says Grebleips, which is Spielberg backwards. This was used in Duel.
  • When Tom is hiding under the truck, we see (from his eyes) the driver's boots as the driver walks along the side of the truck. This was used in Duel.
  • Both movies deal with a main protagonist fighting against a monstrous truck.
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