Review:  ‘Road Games’ tries for Hitchcockian, but it’s really just an odd ride

With “Road Games,” it’s tempting to note that finally, someone has turned the sun-dappled, picturesque French countryside into an arena of homicidal danger. In this playfully obtuse British-Gallic thriller from writer-director Abner Pastoll, a serial killer is targeting rural travelers, which might explain why nobody’s stopping for stranded British hitchhiker Jack (Andrew Simpson).

Sporting only a British passport and no bags, he teams up with another road denizen, beautiful Frenchwoman Veronique (Joséphine de La Baume), and they eventually get picked up by a bearded, chatty and peculiar middle-aged local (Frédéric Pierrot) who invites them to dinner at his country home. The Frenchman’s American wife (Barbara Crampton) is even odder, a haunted-looking and nervous character who gets nervous when talk turns to the uncaught killer and who privately tells Jack to lock his door.

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Needless to say, people aren’t what they seem in this scenario, but the build-up of peculiarities is so interminably coy (and not always funny) that any genuine suspense Pastoll generates dissipates almost as quickly. Though the inspiration here is clearly Hitchcockian, the movie’s vibe is so tongue-in-cheek as to be weightless.

Cult actress Crampton’s buzzy weirdness proves to be an incongruous pairing with Pierrot’s controlled mysteriousness, while a fearful interlude with a grizzled, blade-wielding road-kill specialist (Féodor Atkine) is more head-scratching than freaky. By the time Pastoll unveils his twist, what’s transpired has been too strained logically to justify its cleverness. Though built to divert, “Road Games” mostly feels untethered to any memorably crafty storytelling.

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“Road Games”

No rating. In English and French with English subtitles.

Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes

Playing: Arena Cinema, Hollywood.