For the second week of class we watched Detour and I had low expectations for this movie. When the film was over, I was surprised by how good it was. It is definitely better than Maniac because there was an actual plot to follow and there was nothing that was just left unresolved at the end of the movie. I liked how the reading was able to better explain some of the stuff that was happening in the movie.

My favorite part of this film was the unreliable narrator portion of the film. I have always enjoyed a film that has an unreliable narrator in it. My favorite film that has an unreliable narrator in it is Memento and the reasoning is because you can’t trust the main character throughout the entire film because he suffers from short term memory loss. Detour uses the unreliable narrator throughout the entire film to make the audience constantly question whether or not Al Roberts was telling us the truth. The reason why we are wondering if he was telling the truth is because he is trying to justify his actions that he has done. Some of the film seemed like it could be true, but there is no way that so much bad stuff could happen to one guy. The one thing that stood out to me about how unreliable he is when he is hitchhiking, the cars would change what side the driver was on and also what side of the road they were driving on as well. According to the little documentary after the film, they didn’t know if this was done on purpose or if it was just an accident. No matter what, I believe that they did this on purpose when making the film because it adds to the idea that the narrator is not very reliable. 

Another portion of this film that stuck out to me was the idea of fate and I know exactly why this happened to me. The reasoning is because I was thinking of the film Terminator 2: Judgement Day. The reason I thought of this film is because at the beginning of the film, the characters believe that they all have a certain fate that will happen to them and that there is nothing that can change the fate of these characters. You are led to believe that there is nothing that can prevent Judgement day, but this turns out to be false. By the end of the film the characters are able to prevent the creation of Skynet, and save the future, and change their fates. This is the opposite of Detour where Al thinks he has no choice but to accept fate and that fate is constantly making bad things happen to him. Both films approach fate differently, in one film the characters realise that their fate can be changed, while in the other film, the main character believes that he can’t change his fate.

I really enjoyed Detour as a whole for many different reasons. I would actually recommend for someone to watch this film if they really enjoy movies and if they enjoy noir films. I really enjoyed the unreliable narrator part of the film and an unreliable narrator keeps the viewer entertained because the viewer can’t tell what is real and what is untrue. I mean, my fake title probably caught your attention and made you read this and in the first sentence you realize I was lying, but you kept on reading to see if it was just the first sentence and now you wonder if you could truly trust me. That is what an unreliable narrator does, it makes you keep watching or reading to figure out if the narrator ever tells the truth or if they continue to lie. So, am I an unreliable narrator because I lied about the title?