Chicago Cab

I just finished watching "Chicago Cab" on cable and was moved to post some comments. Though Paul Dillon gets third bill, this is his show.

Better known to most of the world for his hilarious role in the first "Austin Powers" flick, Dillon gets an opportunity to flex his muscles as a fully rounded character actor. Over the course of his very long day (from sun-up to sundown and then some), he picks up a plenitude of fares ranging from sanctimonious (his first fare of the day is a rather smug Born Again couple and their little daughter on their way to church at the very ungodly hour of six in the morning) to the frightening (too many to mention). All are played with conviction by a large number of talented actors ranging from the virtually unknown to very familiar faces in cameos.

One of these well-known faces is Gillian Anderson. It's fun to see her as a foul-mouthed Southside girl; a nice break from her prim, proper Agent Scully persona. Also worthy of mention is Reggie Hayes as Dillon's final fare of the day. The dialogue between the two men is touching and provides a necessary respite from the overall dire (yet entertaining) tone of the film.

I hope Will Kern graces the screen with another effort. This was adapted from his play of the same name and I'd like to see more from him.

As a final note, the video title, "Hellcab," is perhaps misleading. This movie is in no way related to the early CD-ROM game "Hellcab" created by comic artist Pepe Moreno.

In Chicago we spend the day with the driving of a taxi who starts work at 6am, picking up a religious family and taking them to church. Throughout the day he has to deal with many different types of fare, from abusive boyfriends, drunken sports fans, adulterous colleagues and a woman who has been raped. He increasingly gets more and more impatient and distraught with what he sees in Chicago's life and he starts to get very tired as his shift reaches way past midnight on a freezing cold Christmas in Chicago.

This film had potential – lots of characters, lots of stories, lots of real people all come and go past our main character as he drives his cab, however it is all the more annoying for the fact that it is just a badly fragmented film where little bits sort of work, some bits could have worked and other bits are just clichéd and lazily written. Too many of the characters' stories just stop and their point is lost. This is a waste because there is such a wide variety of recognisable characters here that it is a shame that nothing of any interest is done with them. Some of the stories do work and have a minor impact but they are just lost in a film that lacks structure and seems content to be a patchwork of stories and nothing else. Of course, many better films have shown us that a variety of stories with a loose connection can work as a film, but this film fails to have a real central point that we can latch onto.

This point should have been the cabbie, but the film does a bad job with his character and I was never emotionally drawn into his life or his thoughts. Some of the individual stories are quite interesting but they are so truncated that they make no real impact. The cast try hard and I was impressed (surprised?) by just how many well known faces had signed up for the film. Dillon is OK but can't do much with the character – it feels like he is being given direction without understanding what his character feels. The rest of the cast are basically cameos and most of them aren't very good simply because they aren't given much to work with. Ironside, Metcalf, Reilly, Anderson, Cusack, Lennix, Moore and Hayes all show up but few of them can raise the material.

Overall this was an interesting film that had potential but fails to really deliver. It is a good idea and one that requires very good delivery to hold all these stories together and deliver an emotionally satisfying film at the end – however the film fails to do that and it is annoying for that reason. It is a failure but it is not totally without merit, but having said that, I could see no reason for me to ever want to see this again.

A friend and I picked this movie for our usual Crappy Movie Friday, It's called Hellcab, the back says something about unusual/mysterious passengers, so you can't miss, right?

Well, it happened. Sure, we had planned for it, but we'd more or less forgotten our plan. "What if," we had figured, "what if we rent a movie that we -mistake- for a crappy movie and it turns out to be good?" That situation came up. We watched the movie in relative silence (as opposed to our usual nonstop riffage) and in the end found we really liked it. It wasn't horror at all. It wasn't anywhere near crappy. What to do?

We still don't know. But what I know anyway was that I really enjoyed it. The Cab Driver is a great actor and his facial expressions speak volumes. Oh, and John Cusack is hilarious and very creepy as the Scary Guy. (Too bad his role is so brief!)

Check this one out! Don't mistake it for a horror flick! 8.5 out of 10 on My Personal Scale.

Don't let the box art or bad title change fool you (the movie was originally called "Chicago Cab"). This is not a B-horror movie, but an interesting and well done film about a day in the life of a cab driver. He spends the day going through a long shift and picking up all sorts of eccentric passengers. Although we don't really get to know much about the cab driver, the viewer nevertheless feels some sort of attachment to him. The last twenty minutes of the film (which starts with Julianne Moore's character and continues right to the end of the film) is alone worth the rental.

I recommend this movie for those who are looking for something a little different from the norm. I'm still mad though about how this film has been mismarketed.

Unfortunately I only caught this movie part of the way through on TV, but this movie piqued my interest immediately. Having driven taxi's myself for 13 months straight back in 2000/01 I always like to see what it's like for cab drivers elsewhere, how the driver responds to situations etc..

The Christmas eve I spent behind the wheel I got probably less than one passenger an hour, but I noticed that the atmosphere was definitely different from the typical weekday/weekend. So to busy Chicago, where the bald-headed driver is ferrying around a wide variety of people. He handles most things in a relaxed and fairly unstressed manner, and shows concern for others, but unfortunately is in that place in life which would see him earning his way by being behind the wheel of a taxi.

It looks like taxi driving is basically the same thing no matter where you are, mainly ferrying around city folk, the carless people and those who are intoxicated to varying degrees. I've felt the fear that the taxi driver felt when he picked up John Cusack's character, when the person won't tell you where they want to stop off. Are they going to do a runner? is there a dead end around the next corner where five guys with clubs lie in wait? Probably 99 times out of 100 it's a false alarm, but the 100th time...

At the end of the film I sympathised with the cabbie, where he's worn out, he's got the echoes of dozens of conversations in his head, and he's had some good times and some bad times. And back at it again the next day...