No.215 : The Driver (1978)

The Driver at the IMDb

One of the better known definitive films now, as we delve into this noirish 1978 effort, that sees Ryan O’Neal’s titular driver takes on Brue Dern’s Detective.

I hadn’t seen this in a while and it struck me by how much style wins over substance. The film is relatively short at 91 minutes, and large sections of that are taken up with car chases or moody silences. O’Neal doesn’t say a word for the first 15 minutes and only has 350 words of wisdom in the whole film - dark and moody type you understand.

The film opens with a casino heist and the ensuing car chase get away. More cop cars get trashed than in a ‘Blues Brothers’ marathon but our man gets away. The criminals he’s working with were late and won’t see Ryan on anther job as a result. His rules have kept him out of prison so far. This time however there is a witness, and manic cop Dern is keen to collar ‘The Cowboy’, as he calls O’Neal due to his love of Country & Western music.

The witness fails to pick O’Neal from a line up but we later learn that she’s been paid off to provide O’Neal with an alibi. The witness, played by Isabelle Adjani, doesn’t say much either and prefers to stare a lot.

Dern decides that he won’t catch O’Neal by playing fair so after capturing a hapless trio of robbers he offers them a deal - one more job with O’Neil as the driver and they can walk away. This generous offer is accepted despite the protests of Dern’s underlings - is he becoming obsessed? You bet.

The robbery goes down, but there are double crosses and bag switches galore before we learn who, if anyone, is going to drive off into the sunset.

Directed by Walter Hill this film is a lot like his next project ‘The Warriors’ although not as good. O’Neil tries to do broody and interesting but he and Adjani look like they have lost their scripts in most of their scenes, with you almost shouting at the screen for them to spit it out. Dern is better as the obsessed policeman and no one can out stare him in what is largely a staring contest throughout.

Of course all the memorable scenes are the car chases and you get two good ones for your money as well as a Merc getting trashed in a parking garage -  and a bus ride too. I did get a sense that the footage had been sped up somewhat but the pace was excellent, with a real sense of danger. New York City planners should however be criticised for having a large ramp on every corner that flips cars over - that’s plain dangerous.

With very little script and no romance this is a slight affair, but there are enough good scenes in the short run time to keep you occupied. You don’t buy into any of the characters and no back-story or even real names are offered. I think the film was trying to be a sort of parable or morality tale, with the characters irredeemable and all wearing the same clothes throughout, like they are characters from a comic book.

Not one that will live long in the memory once the tyre screeching has dissipated but some excellent driving stunts make it all worthwhile.

THE Tag Line - Drive Don’t Talk!  68%

No.85 : The ‘Burbs (1989)

The 'Burbs at the IMDb

Off to the suburbs now as we take a look at this horror comedy staring Tom Hanks and directed by ‘Gremlins’ helmer Joe Dante. Sounds a sure fire winner? ‘Fraid the ‘Burbs isn’t worth the effort.

Hanks plays  his usual likeable every man character, who on this occasion is called ‘Ray’. He’s married to Princess Leia and is looking forward to a week off at home. Leia is worried he’ll go nuts in their quiet cul-de-sac but we’re pretty sure all sorts of exciting stuff is going on behind the net curtains. They don’t show this exciting stuff however and rely on a dog shitting on someone’s lawn to get a feeble laugh - two if you count the man trodding in the mess five minutes later.

The neighbours are your predictable collection of kooks with Bruce Dern leading the way as a military nut with an unfeasibly attractive wife. For your money you also get Corey Feldman off ‘The Goonies’ and some other assorted and forgettable oddballs.

The pressure of suburbia soon gets to our principals, but while they are at each other’s throats they realise that the new neighbours who moved in a month ago have yet to tend their yard. This mild observation leads to more suspicions and paranoia and before long the gang are convinced a fully fledged cannibal cult have moved in.

They get little satisfaction from the householder but that’s little surprise given he’s the lead Nazi from ‘The Blues Brothers’. With the mania reaching fever pitch our heroes plan a mission to break in to their home and investigate the weird goings on while Feldman hosts a house party so he and his friends can observe the doubtless wacky conclusion.

This was a really dull effort that only succeeded if its intention was to show how dull life in the suburbs can be. The slow build up lasted a full hour and the tension never got above ‘don’t care’. It was clear from the off that the mysterious happenings would have a reasonable explanation and once it all goes explosive it’s equally predictable that a wrong foot is on the cards, otherwise our heroes will end up in the clink.

Part of the issue for me was that the film never left the same few houses. Of course this claustrophobia is part of the plan but it just makes the whole enterprise seem small scale and unimportant. The plot where the foreign neighbours were thought to be eating people was absurd from the off but not in a funny way. Why Hanks didn’t spend his week off getting Leia out of her frumpy outfits and into her ‘Jabba’  bikini instead of raking through bins was never explored.

Bruce Dern was passable doing his usual ‘mania’ bit but Hanks phoned in his performance from very far away. The plot was too thin to sustain the film and although the last half hour brought some explosions and a some surprises they felt unearned as all empathy towards the characters had been lost long ago.

The seismic shift in pace towards the end and the unfolding revelations looked like frantic rewrites that failed to save this laugh and gore free horror comedy.

THE Tag Line ‘ ‘Burbs Fails to Disturb or amuse  45%