Film Review | Drive Angry

The art of taking pleasure in the truly dismal should practically be considered – to use the words of Fight Club’s Tyler Durden – as a yardstick of civilisation. If you find something so bad that you can’t help but keep watching – and taking pleasure in the unwitting comedy that it provides – then congratulations, you’ve reached a higher level of sophistication because, you see, it means you can step outside the confines of whatever is thrown at you and enjoy it for reasons that its creators did not intend.

But it also makes you a bit of a smug twat. It’s all very clever, but whatever happened to just enjoying something for the sake of it, instead of just mocking at every turn?

The creators of the latest Nicolas Cage vehicle (pun intended) capitalise on this none-too-pretty side to human nature. Drive Angry (in 3D!) tries to go for the trashy charm of the exploitation films of old… which now doubtlessly litter late-night television, and which were paid pretty decent homage in Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse double bill some years back.

In fact, once the trailer of Patrick Lussier’s attempt at the same was launched last year, I practically jumped for joy. Gleeful trash makes the word a better place. The 3D tag, for once, seemed to be a lurid little bonus: if you’re going for a garish cinematic experience, just go all out.

But where Tarantino’s contribution to Grindhouse (Death Proof… incidentally also a car-themed flick) was a finely crafted labour of love which provided more-than-superficial pleasures and excellent automotive acrobatics, Drive Angry starts off with a similarly unapologetic swagger that eventually slows down to a saunter.

On paper (and, by extension, on trailer), the plot crackles with the gleeful energy of the guiltiest of guilty pleasures. When we meet our none-too-subtly monickered hero, John Milton (Cage) he is both pursing and pursued. Hot on the trail of a gang of devil worshippers who plan to sacrifice his baby granddaughter, Milton is pulling absolutely no punches until he gets to their leader: the sleazily charismatic – and, naturally, psychotic – Jonah King (Billy Burke).

After all, he did break out of Hell to do the job. But – and this should come as a surprise to nobody – hell wants him back. So its sends The Accountant (William Fitchner) to keep tabs on him. When Milton’s car breaks down on the way to Stillwater – where the sacrifice is set to take place – he hitches a ride with the feisty and love-spurned Piper (Amber Heard), whose life he pretty much saved after he beats her abusive fiancé to a pulp.

It’s all rather great for the first 45 minutes or so. Cage is established as a vindictive badass early on, and Heard’s sex appeal is made apparent too. The intro doesn’t mince around with any exposition: it’s made clear to us that Cage’s rage is bordering on the supernatural, and that we’re in for some wonderfully ludicrous set pieces (a shootout mid-coitus about halfway through is about as good as violent cinema gets).

Fitchner is an absolute joy: smug and professional at equal turn, he is a smooth trickster and a perfect foil for both the grimy redneck devil-worshipper’s and Cage’s earnest quest. Burke, too, in possession of a won-dah-full-eh old world Southern twang, gives an extra twist to his cartoonishly evil villain. 

But there good reasons why exploitation films tended to be on the short side… and not all of them had to do with budget. Some of the plot points are kept under wraps to serve as weak twists as we go along, but really… once Cage and Heard get going, there really isn’t much else for the film to do.

A film that relies so crucially on adrenaline can’t afford an ‘A to B’ structure like this one, and not only does it slow things down, but reveals that Lussier is, really, a raggedy emperor with absolutely no item of clothing on him whatsoever. Not only do things slow down interminably… but when the car chases do come (and they’re supposed to be central, judging by the title) they’re revealed to be nothing but a lacklustre exercise.

The end result is a film that tries to go for ‘bad’ chic, but just ends up being ‘boring’. I can’t think of a more pathetic predicament… and what’s more, it doesn’t even regale us with the pleasures of the truly awful.