I wish they had made at least one fire.

These "idiots" do a lot of survival no-nos; for example: walking, wounded and dehydrated into the middle of a desert as an alternative to following a road that has occasional car traffic, failing to erect a signal of any kind (such as leaving the hood up, even), failing to mark the direction in which they decided to travel with rocks/dirt, etc.

I think the general point of the movie is that these are two pretty normal guys: totally screwed by their own naivete in an otherwise survivable incident.

yeah my biggest gripe is walking in the desert instead of walking on the road. they missed a few opportunities by not staying on road

Every time Carter slammed the hood down I wanted to scream! They could have used the truck lighter to start a fire. They still had fuel in the tank. They could have tied a piece of clothe to the antenna. The could have found a way to have written some kind of note.

But remember much of what happened may or may not have actually happened. At one point they both could have been saved. Then there was at least one day when only one of them could have been saved.

Yeah, and Carter, since he planned the breakdown should have had a cooler in the truck with at least ice and drinks.

I couldn't understand why they didn't put a big make-shift sine "Need Help Call Police" on the windshield of the truck. That whould seem to be Survival 101 to me.

Agreed, even if the truck didn't have a cigarette lighter (those old trucks all did), the battery would produce enough spark to ignite fuel or shrubbery. After the window was broken, they would have been warmer by shutting some clothes in the window opening to block the wind and snuggle together for body heat retention. I did love the ending though, gave me the chills. And homeboy looked quite dashing with that mohawk. I thought it was a good movie, a lot of people are very stupid, and not thinking right with lack of water and all the feuding.

Leaving the hood up is rule number one for a sign of distress, and this movie taught me to stay by the vehicle in situations like this. It would have probably been kind of easy to get the truck running. I would have at least tried working on the truck the entire time, keep my mind busy, etc.

He pulled off the main coil cable, with means the problem could have been spark related. When the smoke appeared that was weird, like a radiator hose blew. Not very believable in terms of auto mechanics, but still, you could limp that truck down the road pretty easily - those old trucks don't have a lot to them.

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