Runtime: A lean mean 91 minutes
Directed by: Walter Hill
Starring: Ryan O'Neal, Bruce Dern, Isabelle Adjani, Ronee Blakley, Matt Clark
From: 20th Century Fox
It was something I listened to recently that led me down a rabbit hole of searching what's available on YouTube-I'll be honest here. Lord knows I've watched plenty of motion pictures that way without acknowledging the fact but this is a flick that had to be viewed on that platform as there's no other streaming option.
It has a plot distilled to its essence with no wasted time or superfluous BS. In just an hour and a half we follow both The Driver, who does that task for criminals and The Detective, who is rather tenacious in trying to bust him... in fact he is less than ethical in his obsession w/ capturing that white whale. Yes, none of the characters have an actual name-instead they are known as their archetype or what their role is. That trend isn't a recent phenomenon, folks. As we don't really get to know the characters aside from the basics, I suppose it's alright their birth names aren't shared.
The movie could have been a bore or even a frustrating watch. Thank heavens it was not; the performances were so strong and what action we do get (especially the car chases) were superb. There's really no heroes to speak of yet thankfully this wasn't nihilistic or a miserable slog. This movie has clearly inspired the likes of Tarantino, Wright and Refn—I'll just say that Ryan O'Neal as The Driver might as well have worn a silver jacket w/ a gold scorpion on the back. As others have noted, this was probably inspired by the French classic Le Samourai. Bruce Dern plays The Detective (as in, police detective) yet he does many questionable things so it's still the type of character you'd expect Dern to play. Isabelle Adjani did impress in her Hollywood debut.
This even has a nice aesthetic; there's plenty of green, whether it be the background or the lighting, sometimes rather overtly. Once I check out Hard Times sometime in the near future, I am pretty sure that I'll then get to say that I thought Walter Hill's first seven movies were either pretty good or very good-what a start to his career.
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