Driver, l'imprendibile

The Driver is a stylish, detached and antisocial tribute to driving for the sake of driving and crime for the sake of crime, made at a time when those things still had a palpable meaning for most big-city Americans. The writer/director is Walter Hill, penner of the not too dissimilar cult film The Getaway a few years earlier. And although he made more successful films later on (notably 48 Hrs.), The Driver is arguably among his most gutsy and hard-hitting. It's worth a watch for the fervour it represents and instils, if nothing else. Ryan O'Neal, Bruce Dern and Isabelle Adjani are the attractive trio of lead actors.

As many other Walter Hill films, The Driver portraits a stripped universe inhabited by archetypes. These are nameless, speechless and can trace their roots to the principles of Epic.

It can happen in any city, during the late 70s or nowadays but as a film noir in its essence, exclusively at night.

The performances are great and the car chases register no equal in film history. The pace of the delivery of lines is almost as suspensful as the story itself.

The minimalism of Hill's execution resembles the cinema of Jean Pierre Melville and the film's universe picks up there where Hawks, Walsh and Siegel left.

It's an exercise in style, a triumph of a clever mind, a loveable barren film that adresses, from particular detail, general, eternal issues.

There is no baloney in this surprisingly good movie (it's not well-known). It also sports a real oddity: no one's name is mentioned in the entire film! Try to think of any other film you've ever seen where this is the case.

Why 'The Driver" is not better known is a mystery since the director (Walter Hill) and main actors (Ryan O'Neal and Bruce Dern) are well-known entities.

Maybe because Ryan, who people think of more as the likable male in the immensely popular "Love Story," "Paper Moon" and "Barry Lyndon" plays against type, playing an ultra-serious criminal. Make no mistake: he does it well. He is a man of few words in this movie and he handles that in a fascinating manner. Dern is always interesting. Isabelle Adjani, more famous as a French actress, is nice to ogle and she, too, doesn't say much in this film.

The rest of the characters in this "neo noir" are a bunch of nasties, giving that edgy feel.

If you like film noir and particularly if you like car-chase scenes, well, this movie is must-have, because there are several intense chase scenes in here and they are long. They're also well-photographed, fun to watch and certainly keep your attention.

I looked long and hard for this film and finally found it online... About a year ago I found the novelization at a local used bookshop and was enthralled. Then I shook loose a repressed memory of a scene from the Driver -well more like an image. That of Ryan O'Neal behind the wheel -shades in place, a study in cool.

Well I was obsessed and had to find the film. Once I did, it was like some sort of archaeological find. I popped it in the vcr (old school all the way) and sat back ready to be taken into a dangerous world of ruthless and amoral characters who live by some sort of twisted samurai code and law of thieves.

In a nutshell, this film delivered in spades. If you can find a copy of it, buy it or rent it. The car chases are extraordinary. The performances and cinematography are gloriously minimal and committed to the aesthetic of 'cool'.

It's a shame that junk like "The Transporter" and "Gone In Sixty Seconds" have come to embody the modern day equivalent of the existential bad guy and wheelman. Those films aren't fit to shine the chrome of this one.

One of Walter Hill's Best.

Thumbs Up.

The Driver (1978)

Walter Hill's underrated film may have been forgotten completely had it not been for the success of the "Driver" series of Playstation games on which this film is a massive influence. Ryan O'Neal plays the Driver, a ronin-like character, willing to act as an unbeatable getaway driver for anyone as long as the price is right because, well...it's what he does. Bruce Dern is the Cop set on finally catching the elusive criminal, even if it means aiding and abetting criminal activity himself.

This most reminded me of Michael Mann's crime films from the 80s onwards such as "Thief" and "Heat" - Hill's film shares the same kind of existentialist themes about identity - men defined and ruled by their actions, to the extent that they have no room in their lives for anything else. It also shares Mann's style - creating an urban environment that's both chic, yet realistically gritty.

Ryan O'Neal may not have quite the cult status of Steve McQueen but his portrayal of the Driver as an empty, emotionless human being is strengthened through the characters sheer self-confidence and survival instinct. Bruce Dern gives the Cop a nice contrast to his lifeless target, bringing a kind of goofy, obsessive tenacity, as he sets up a bank job with some petty criminals in his attempt to be the first cop to catch the Driver. Isabelle Adjani is strikingly vacant, although her role in the proceedings is far from well defined.

It has to be said that the car chases are brilliant - from the opening getaway police chase to the Driver's calculated destruction of a very shiny Mercedes in an underground parking lot and the final cat and mouse game in a labyrinthine warehouse. The dramatic scenes do inevitably feel a bit sluggish sometimes and the constant hard-boiled dialogue does start to grate. Despite a seemingly sparse, clear-cut plot there are moments towards the climax which are confusing and frustrating.

The existential aspect of the plot is emphasised with a complete absence of character names, so maybe it is fitting that the film, and it's central character, only really comes alive during the car chase scenes - though this may be very relevant to the film's philosophy it does limit the sheer entertainment value as those looking for constant thrills, which the film does deliver, may find the wait between them in such a barren landscape a little tedious while armchair philosophers may find the existential "coolness" forced.