Customer Reviews

The Driver

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Come on this is the cut down version which has been available on dvd in the U.K for a couple of years.
At Los Angeles's American Cinemateque, a 131 minute version of "The Driver" was shown. While it does add insights to some characters in the story, this longer version features many more car chases.
This is lsited at IMDB.com under alternate versions, and should be the version due for dvd release, but is'nt WHY ???
COME ON AND PULL YOUR FINGER OUT THIS MOVIE DESERVES A TWO DISC SPECIAL EDITION, ARE YOU READING THIS ANCHOR BAY / BLUE UNDERGROUND ?
WE THE DRIVER FANS DEMAND THE FULL VERSION, SO FORGET THIS ONE AND WAIT.

This film makes GONE IN 60 SECONDS seem like a movie for 8 year olds. Although sold as a "car chase movie" there is a lot more to this film than that especially its tight plot, taut direction, mis en scene, and fun. It's a thriller whose cross and double cross shenanigans are a pure delight and recall the best of the likes of Howard Hawks in the film noir forties. It rivals Jean-Pierre Melville and if Walter Hill's name was Jean-Pierre Hill from Paris it would be thought of as a classic. Hill's crime is that he's American. Culturally snobbery at work again I believe. Forget the cars for a minute, dear viewer, and let's consider the four main actors and what they do. Ryan O'Neal plays incommunicative, lonely, cold, precise, and good to look at perfectly. Isabelle Adjani plays incommunicative, lonely, cold, precise and good to look at perfectly. Which leaves the screen to one of cinema's greatest actors - Bruce Dern - to really go for it. And go for it he does. He is at his brilliant, scene-stealing, word chewing best, and is frankly rivetting and incredible fun to watch. With O'Neal and Adjani walking through po-faced throughout, Dern has a field day and is very ably helped by his cop buddy Ronee Blakly. To top the movie off, there are some of the best car chase sequences on film, as good as BULLITT. This in my view is WALTER HILL's masterpiece (he also wrote the screenplay for SAM PECKINPAH's GETAWAY in 1972). It is absolutely horrifying to me to see that Video Hound's Golden Movie Retriever 2000 give this film one and half bones which makes me nervous about many of their other reviews. I've seen this film about 15 times. It holds up. Don't deny it to yourself if you love cinema.

Amazing-and to this day a film that is not loved as much as it should be. Ryan O'Neal is great as the driver-a nearly silent Hawksian professional getaway driver. Bruce Dern is also good as a cop bent on catching this outlaw. Lots of western parallels. Great scene wherein O'Neal is asked to demonstrate his driving skill and he destroys the car that his fellow crooks have brought. Lots of great car chases-some of the best ever. Walter Hill really does a heck of a great job here(like he has before). A great film that deserves the cult following it has-it even deserved more-well worth owning.

In the late `70s and early `80s Walter Hill was one of the best action/thriller directors. Like Don Siegel and Sam Peckinpah before him, Hill made lean, gritty no-nonsense genre pictures like The Warriors, Southern Comfort and 48HRS. He understands that what drives an action film is visual storytelling through kinetic editing. This is what propels his under-appreciated movie, The Driver that is finally seeing its debut on DVD.

The near dialogue-less opening heist/getaway sequence foreshadows the same kind of approach Michael Mann would later apply to his own urban crime thrillers, most notably, Thief, which owes a huge debt to The Driver in terms of style and attitude. The first car chase, where the Driver evades several police cars through city streets at night is the epitome of stylistic economy. There is no CGI, no special effects; just judicious use of editing and letting the action tell the story.

Hill employs a classic, no frills style of filmmaking that is almost non-existent in today's climate which is all about music video style and editing (which he dabbled with in Streets of Fire). He doesn't feel the need to spell things out through dialogue or providing unnecessary back stories. It's not important where this guy came from or that we even like him. This movie is a battle of wills between the Driver and the Detective.

There is a three-minute "Alternate Beginning" which establishes, early on, the detective's work philosophy and also the two women in the Driver's life. This prologue originally aired on television.

Also included is a theatrical trailer.

Sadly, Fox has not included the 135 minute version that was shown at Los Angeles's American Cinemateque, which apparently included more car chases.

There is no baloney in this surprisingly good movie (it's not well-known). It also the 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 known entities.

Maybe because Ryan, who people think of more as the likable male in the immensely popular "Love Story" 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 modern-day film noir ("neo noir") are a bunch of low-lifes. 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.

Nice to see this movie released on widescreen DVD. The transfer isn't that sharp, though, but it's inexpensive and worth the money.

Walter Hill is the doyen of American action films, hands down. 1978's The Driver is one of his best; the focus here is on momentum, pure and simple. There are great car chases and the slam-bang stuff is there in buckets--especially a great scene inside a parking garage in which the title character played by Ryan O'Neal demolishes a vermilion Mercedes Benz by screeching around corners all over the place, showing just how good a driver he is to skeptical crooks who need him as their getaway man.

A laconic flick to be sure, The Driver gives nobody names. Bruce Dern is the snartass cop who's after the driver and even recruits bank robbers to nab him. Natch, that doesn't work. You could even say this is the quintessential Hill flick (although I am very partial to Trespass), since dialogue is overshadowed by car chases and all the other stuff manipulative people (cops and criminals both) do to make their place in the world. What dialogue there is wastes no words, just like the plot wastes no time on what could be a possible romance (O'Neal and French lovely Isabelle Adjani), instead having the two of them partner up for a lot of dough--knowing glances, yeah, but no gooey stuff.

Ronee Blakley is also here in a smaller role as another great looking go-between for the driver, but she's not on screen a lot, and there's never even the faintest hint of any hanky-panky between them.

This is not only one of the best Hill flicks, but without question one of the best American action films ever made. The recent drivel, I mean, Driven, with Stallone deserves to crash and burn, while The Driver--tight as a drum and slick as greased lightning--is a red hot roadster of a film.

See it when you need a serious revving up.

This is a true piece of american noir. It seems like a diverting little car chase movie the first time you see it, but O'Neil's stoic, nihilistic getaway driver has a way of bringing you back for more viewings. It's interesting that Ian Muldoon mentions the similarity to a Jean-Pierre Melville film in his review, because I think this movie owes a lot to Melville's LE SAMOURAI (on which John Woo's THE KILLER was also based). Just like Melville's hit man Jeff kills without conscience or reflection, yet still abides by an unbending code of honor, O'Neil's Driver is, ironically, more moral in his way than the obsessed, power-mad cop (Bruce Dern) who pursues him.

Walter Hill no frills, straight-to-the-gut style really works here. The costumes, sets, and cinematography are dark, understated, and really engrossing, especially on repeated viewings. I believe that this is a movie that grad-school film students will be watching 100 years from now.

WHO needs 48 Hours or Red Heat? THIS is the masterpiece of Walter Hill!!! No comedy! No silly dialoges, JUST PURE HIGH QUALITY ACTION!!!

There are two LONG AND WILD car chases!!, the story is EASY to understand, the acting is preety cool, the storyline is action-packed, there are short gun-fighting scenes but COOL!!! and like most of the Walter Hill movies, the main character "packs a punch"!!!

MAN!! The car chases were the main attraction of the movie, there are to fast and well edited, the cameras made a lot of movements and the editing was quick. There are no famous cars but who needs them anyway, (unless you are a Bullit fan).

P.S: I can't wait for the complete edition of this movie to come out on dvd!

Adios.

Another long awaited cult noir film about a shady wheel man, of a certain questionable reputation, played casually by Ryan O'Neal. Then enters a dirty detective(Bruce Dern),bearing a grudge.Into this mix is the wheel man, like a gunslinger, who just wants a shot at love and wants to put it all behind him. From the first spin in his car, Ryan O'Neal, shows his stuff. There's hardly a clean, honest, upright person in this film which puts you on edge even when you aren't admiring the action. Bruce Dern hounds O'Neal demonically, so that you root for O'Neal and there's always the possibilty of a double-cross. Ryan O'Neal had every reason to pick up where Steve McQueen checked out, but I guess he really had it bad for dames. Some day there will be a Ryan O'Neal collection of ovelooked movies that prove how good he was, if only some studio head cared.This is one of the gems. Great double-bill with "Two Lane Black Top."

It's too bad director Walter Hill will likely be remembered more for providing Eddie Murphy with his first big screen showcase (in "48 Hours") than for his overall contribution to the American action film genre. Hill's tough-as-nails 1978 noir "The Driver" is arguably both his least-known and best work. Ryan O'Neal is quite effective as a dour, sociopathic "wheelman" who hires himself out as a getaway driver for assorted criminal enterprises. Bruce Dern is at his sleazy best as the cynical but driven cop on his trail. O'Neal and Dern play this classic cat-and-mouse noir scneario to the hilt (similar to Pacino and DeNiro's relationsip in 1995's "Heat"). Isabelle Adjani's icy beauty well suits her role as O'Neal's fatalistic girlfriend. It's ironic that Ryan O'Neal's best films seem to be the ones where he doesn't have to recite much dialogue ("Barry Lyndon"). Supposedly the word count for O'Neal's lines in "The Driver" totals a scant 350 (!) according to a "factoid" that prefaced a recent cable airing. Well worth seeking out.