The Driver (15.)
Directed by Walter Hill.
Starring Ryan O'Neal, Bruce Dern, Isabelle Adjani and Ronee Blakley. 1978. 91 mins.
Available to buy on Blu-Ray from Studiocanal from 14th July.
The Driver is the tale of a professional getaway driver, played by Ryan O'Neal, and by far the most impressive aspect of it is the enormous distance it has managed to put between itself and its reputation in the last 36 years. Today it is held to be a classic of sparse, pared to the bone, existential American crime drama, the inspiration for Drive; the reality is a piece that only fitfully raises above the level of 70s TV movie. Less lean and mean, more light and meagre.
No names, no pack drill is the film's big idea. Everybody is reduced to the level of archetype: apart from the title character there is The Cop (Dern) who is out to get him and Adjani who is identified as The Player, but is really The Girl. It all makes for a really egalitarian credit sequence – everybody from the stars to the performers whose roles are defined as Glasses, Teeth or Frizzy, look like bit part player.
The Driver is the end product of a ping pong process of transatlantic pretentiousness. Initially the French critics attached autuer stautus to various Hollywood genre directors and then they got to make films that refracted back distorted or distilled notions of American pulp. American directors then started to steal back the ideas. The Driver, like many Hollywood crime dramas then and since, takes inspiration from the films of Jean-Pierre Melville. A fine notion, which falls flat because the film is not up to much.
This was Walter Hill's second movie and his talent was about to explode thrillingly into life subsequent to this with a run of great films: The Warriors, The Long Riders and Southern Comfort. This though has ambitions that its production values just can't match. The credits, the supporting cast, the car chases, the dialogue and the set designs are all strictly TV movie. The only stylish touch is a greenish hue that has been applied to some of the nighttime exteriors – not much, but enough for some critics to cite Edward Hopper as an inspiration.
These types of films are a real challenge for actors because they negate their usual routine to build as full and rounded a characterisation as possible. Here they have to be less than they can be, and yet still compel. Poor Adjani comes off worse. Her looks have been blanded out so she looks like she has just come from a failed Charlie's Angels audition. With everybody else remaining tight lipped Dern attempts to steal the show with some wildly inappropriate overacting – he's like a clown act at a wake. O' Neal is the best of the leads, probably because at this stage of his career he was comfortable with the idea that he deserved to be centre of attention without doing anything to earn it.
The real problem though is that it isn't believable. These tales of taciturn obsessive professionals only work if you accept their commitment. Michael Mann's Heat is mostly baloney but you buy into De Niro's steely calculated determination, and from him into the whole film. In contrast, while O'Neal and Dern talk themselves up as being the best around, we see precious little evidence of it. I'm not au fait with the ways of the criminal classes but I'd imagine that some basic people skills would be essential to career longevity. Both Dern and O'Neal specialise in needlessly antagonising colleagues and clients, and with such demeaning braggadocio you can't believe they could have got this far in their industry.
Directed by Walter Hill.
Starring Ryan O'Neal, Bruce Dern, Isabelle Adjani and Ronee Blakley. 1978. 91 mins.
Available to buy on Blu-Ray from Studiocanal from 14th July.
The Driver is the tale of a professional getaway driver, played by Ryan O'Neal, and by far the most impressive aspect of it is the enormous distance it has managed to put between itself and its reputation in the last 36 years. Today it is held to be a classic of sparse, pared to the bone, existential American crime drama, the inspiration for Drive; the reality is a piece that only fitfully raises above the level of 70s TV movie. Less lean and mean, more light and meagre.
No names, no pack drill is the film's big idea. Everybody is reduced to the level of archetype: apart from the title character there is The Cop (Dern) who is out to get him and Adjani who is identified as The Player, but is really The Girl. It all makes for a really egalitarian credit sequence – everybody from the stars to the performers whose roles are defined as Glasses, Teeth or Frizzy, look like bit part player.
The Driver is the end product of a ping pong process of transatlantic pretentiousness. Initially the French critics attached autuer stautus to various Hollywood genre directors and then they got to make films that refracted back distorted or distilled notions of American pulp. American directors then started to steal back the ideas. The Driver, like many Hollywood crime dramas then and since, takes inspiration from the films of Jean-Pierre Melville. A fine notion, which falls flat because the film is not up to much.
This was Walter Hill's second movie and his talent was about to explode thrillingly into life subsequent to this with a run of great films: The Warriors, The Long Riders and Southern Comfort. This though has ambitions that its production values just can't match. The credits, the supporting cast, the car chases, the dialogue and the set designs are all strictly TV movie. The only stylish touch is a greenish hue that has been applied to some of the nighttime exteriors – not much, but enough for some critics to cite Edward Hopper as an inspiration.
These types of films are a real challenge for actors because they negate their usual routine to build as full and rounded a characterisation as possible. Here they have to be less than they can be, and yet still compel. Poor Adjani comes off worse. Her looks have been blanded out so she looks like she has just come from a failed Charlie's Angels audition. With everybody else remaining tight lipped Dern attempts to steal the show with some wildly inappropriate overacting – he's like a clown act at a wake. O' Neal is the best of the leads, probably because at this stage of his career he was comfortable with the idea that he deserved to be centre of attention without doing anything to earn it.
The real problem though is that it isn't believable. These tales of taciturn obsessive professionals only work if you accept their commitment. Michael Mann's Heat is mostly baloney but you buy into De Niro's steely calculated determination, and from him into the whole film. In contrast, while O'Neal and Dern talk themselves up as being the best around, we see precious little evidence of it. I'm not au fait with the ways of the criminal classes but I'd imagine that some basic people skills would be essential to career longevity. Both Dern and O'Neal specialise in needlessly antagonising colleagues and clients, and with such demeaning braggadocio you can't believe they could have got this far in their industry.
