Where does one start writing about this movie? This has got to be one of the best action movies of all time and a great psychological and philosophical study of the human condition.

The first hour is based in a small down at heel town in an unnamed South American country populated almost entirely by dodgy down at heel ‘tramps’, criminals and men with a story that they don’t want to tell.

Everyone seems to have ended up in this town by accident or expediency and once there can’t escape due to lack of funds and with no way of raising any cash.

An oil rig fire provides the opportunity for four characters to earn $2000 each so that they can escape back to civilization. Of course it’s not as easy as it seems as the drivers have to transport two tons of liquid nitro-glycerine.

The American company doing the hiring know they are paying under the odds by employing non-union drivers and they provide trucks without proper suspension.

What follows is a riveting nerve jangling 300 mile journey on some of the worst roads around.

I would thoroughly recommend this film to anyone who wants to see a cracking movie but also to those in Hollywood who have forgotten how to keep human relationships the central point in an action film.