The Driver Reviews

Boys and their stolen toys

This is an enjoyable, if rather pointless, addition to the car chase/crime genre that began to gain in popularity during the 1970s. Whilst the plot was never in danger of getting in the way of tyre burning car chases, the lead protagonists O?Neal (The Driver) and Dern (The Detective) are allowed to develop enough of a cat and mouse relationship to ensure the film holds together.

The cinematography at times, I felt, successfully portrayed a dark and claustrophobic criminal underworld environment in which the Driver operated. The car chase sequences were fine but nothing really groundbreaking.

Acting is average but the dialogue was punchy at times.

Whilst this film is a long way from the high testosterone, low brow world of modern films such as The Fast and the Furious it probably won?t appeal to the more ?discerning? viewer. However if like me you are a fan of 70s films then is a reasonable, if not essential, addition to your rental list. 3 out of 5.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Fast

An existentialist thriller, i.e.one in which there's not much talking and what there is comes slow and meaningful, this film is basically for those of us who like watching cars being driven at impossibly high speeds through cities in an attempt to escape another car chasing them. That the cop involved is Bruce Dern is a plus, although Ryan O'Neal, as the getaway diver, delivers an 'anybody could do this' performance. A pretty rivetting film for all you wannabe boy racers though.

The Driver

The Driver is to American cinema what Melville's crime movies were to the French. Ryan O'Neil plays a rent-a-getaway-driver of the title with no life outside his 'work' - no friends, no lovers, seemingly no family. He lives in a tiny run-down apartment and earns £10,000 a job. Bruce Dern is the cop hell-bent on out-smarting his criminal in whatever way possible. Walter Hill creates a stark, sombre film full of meaningful silences, high-speed car chases, and erm...that's about it. This is what it would look like if Melville made an English language crime movie.

Best driver scene

Has one of the best driving scenes ever, the main guy has to be tested to prove he's the best. Deffinately worth watching for this scene slone!

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Camus with cars

Like Camus' ‘The Outsider’, the people who populate ‘The Driver’ are cold, unemotional and live in a seeming vacuum. No-one has friends, family or lovers but merely people they are forced to work with, be it criminals or the police. Even these relationships are fractious and prone to betrayal.

Denied the usual excess trappings of the heist genre, this film is pared down to an elemental form whereby characters have no names, dialogue is sparse and the cars are almost fetishized as prehistoric steeds which become a physical extension of the people within (similar to those monstrous vehicles in The Cars That Ate Paris). Action truly speaks louder than words here. The photography is well suited to the grimy underworld it depicts. Daylight is filmed as being so oppressive and heavy that it may as well be night.

Bruce Dern, Ryan O'Neal and Isabelle Adjani are points of the triangle destined never to meet. Compelling viewing.

great

great movie plenty of action it is verygood movie to watch brill movie