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Drive Angry Review

I was looking forward to Drive Angry since the first trailer. With recent movies Machete, The Expendables, and The A-Team, we have seen the return of over-the-top awesomeness that hasn't been seen in theaters for nearly two decades. Drive Angry does indeed carry this torch, but not quite as successfully as some of those other movies.

There are a few contributing factors here, but most can be laid at the feet of director Patrick Lussier. Despite all of the elements being there on paper - Nic Cage, gratuitous violence, rock music, a hot co-star, Nic Cage, classic muscle cars, a stupendously evil villain, supernatural powers, and Nic Cage - Lussier just doesn't seem to be able to put it all together correctly.

Machete worked because Robert Rodriguez knew how to film an unrestrained, unapologetic exploitation flick (while also giving us more content and character than we expected). The Expendables worked because Sylvester Stallone was one of the founding fathers of '80s action, so he knows how to build a movie around that premise. Lussier, on the other hand, seemed uncomfortable with Drive Angry...like he wasn't quite sure where to put the camera, and wasn't quite sure whether he was filming a comedy, drama, action, or exploitation piece.

Lussier also seemed to have a problem know what to do with his cast. Joe Carnahan let Liam Neeson be the leader/mentor, Quinton Jackson be the tough guy, and Bradley Cooper be the wise guy. Stallone had Dolph Lundgren be the heavyweight, Jet Li be the martial artist, Randy Couture be the brawler, and - in one of the film's most inspired moments - had former NFL player Terry Crews throw a bomb like it was a pigskin. These directors knew where their casts' strengths were, and used them. Cage is generally not known for his understated performances, but rather than let him use his "crazy man" persona, Lussier instead has Cage be the "quietly brooding badass." It was a choice that would have fit an actor like Jason Statham much better (for an amusing example of the reverse, try to imagine Statham attempting the "I'm Stanley Goodspeed" line from The Rock).

There were a few other issues that didn't help. John Milton (Cage) was supposedly a guy who "fell in with the wrong crowd" and did a lot of bad things...starting when he was in his mid-thirties? Also, Milton abandoned his daughter when she was 16, then she joined a cult and had a daughter (the macguffin for this movie). Unless she had that first baby when she was in her 40s, Milton died sometime in the 1990s or 2000s...yet he is confused by cell phones. Also, a 20-something waitress in Colorado is familiar with a prison in Louisiana because her dad spent some time there...but the buildings in the final act appear to have been abandoned for a quarter century or more?

Other movies have had more egregious mistakes, but we didn't care because we were so into the movie. Drive Angry doesn't draw us in like that: it lets us notice that there are gaping plot holes, and doesn't offer a single giant robot fight to distract us. It's unfortunate, because Drive Angry had some very good moments (chief of which was William Fichtner's fantastic portrayal of The Accountant). Overall, it felt too "middle of the road" to me. It wasn't truly awful, but it had truly outstanding scenes either. All in all a good rental, and maybe one I'll pick up on DVD, but it is not a must-see.

Collector/Modeler Interest:
Some good ones here: the '63 Riviera, '71 Chevelle, and '68 Camaro are all available as kits from AMT (the Riv may require a trip to eBay or the Modelhaus for the '63-specific parts), and the '69 Charger, '57 Chevy, and '00 Impala police car are all available as kits from Revell.


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