By Todd Garbarini
Directed
by Patrick Lussier, whose previous directorial outing was 2009’s entertaining 3D
film My Bloody Valentine, Drive Angry is a wild, extravagant and
farfetched ride about deep, meaningful subjects such as love and loss, and
takes the audience through various locations in Louisiana. Nicolas Cage stars
as Milton, a convicted felon who
makes his way out of Hell to stop Jonah King (Billy Burke), the head of a Satanic
cult, from sacrificing Milton’s infant granddaughter to the Prince of Darkness on
the night of the full moon, thus becoming the most powerful human alive. The
cult killed Milton’s daughter and he will stop at nothing to kill as many of
the cult members as possible with his trusty “GodKiller†gun. Unfortunately, Milton is without a vehicle,
but a fortuitous stop at a roadside diner puts him into a partnership with Piper
(Amber Heard of The Joneses and the
upcoming The Rum Diary), a waitress who
bolts from her lecherous boss (Jack McGee) and cheating boyfriend Frank (Todd
Farmer, who co-wrote the script with the director) in the latter’s 1969 Dodge
Charger. Together, Milton and Piper seek to stop the cult and save Milton’s
granddaughter and humanity from the dark forces of evil. With the police hot on Milton and Piper’s
trail, one of the Devil’s minions, known as The Accountant (William Fitchner), inexorably
chases Milton in an effort to take him back to Hell.
Mr. Cage took the role as he had never read a
script like this, and perhaps his turn as Sailor in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart prepared him for some of
the craziness to be had. He and Ms.
Heard make an interesting screen duo
and she holds her own opposite the seasoned pro. Known for her role as the
enigmatic Greta Matthews on the CW’s Hidden
Palms and as the sexually promiscuous and ill-fated Christie in The Informers, a look at Los Angeles in
the early 1980’s when the AIDS epidemic started to break, Ms. Heard’s Piper is
feisty and takes lip from no one, throwing punches like the best of the screen
legends. Ms. Heard is known for her love
of muscle cars and currently drives a 1968 Ford Mustang, so she feels right at
home in a film that professes a love for all things automotive and nostalgic. Piper is searching for meaning in her life,
and in a moving scene by the film’s end, she’s found it.
William
Fitchner practically steals the film as The Accountant. His mannerisms and method of addressing
others in pursuit of Milton is simultaneously sinister and funny. There are also some terrific supporting
players to round out the action. The
ever-reliable Tom Atkins is great as the police captain who is mistaken for a
civilian by a rookie (Mr. Atkins was in My
Bloody Valentine prior to this); Jack McGee, a former New York City
firefighter who thankfully became an actor, appears as Fat Lou, the restaurant
owner and chef whose moves on Piper places him at risk of permanently singing
soprano. NYPD Blue’s Charlotte Ross as Candy, a waitress whose coitus with Milton in a motel room is
interrupted by the crossfire of his shootout with Jonah King’s men, is
convincing as a terrified woman caught in a near-death experience; Billy Burke
is menacing as Jonah, and his best scenes are his reaction shots with no
dialogue (he played an abusive father on season two of Fox TV’s 24, and Kristen Stewart’s father in the Twilight series).
Blu-Ray
releases are hit or miss. They either
look terrific, or they tend to suffer from edge enhancement and an
overabundance of film grain. Drive Angry, to be released on May 31,
2011 by Summit Entertainment (www.summit-ent.com), easily wins out as reference
quality. The film looks absolutely
stunning, with rich and clear visuals. The
package comes with a set of two discs. Disc one contains the film in 3D and unlike a multitude of films
released lately that were rushed into theatres in post convert 3D (industry
parlance for a film shot in 2D, then converted to 3D in post production), Drive Angry was shot native 3D: intended
as 3D from the get-go and actually filmed in the 3D format.
The
second disc contains the film in 2D and the film plays just fine in this
format. It would have been nice if the
set contained a standard definition DVD copy of the film, or the standard DVD on
the flipside of disc two, but the film looks so beautiful on Blu-Ray that
watching it on standard DVD would invariably lose some of the painstaking
luster of Brian Pearson’s gorgeous cinematography which is alternately bright/colorful
and dark/ominous, keeping consistent with the film’s theme of good and evil.
The Blu-Ray comes
with several special features which are all relegated to disc two, the 2D
version of the film. First up is an
entertaining commentary with director Patrick Lussier and co-writer Todd Farmer
who appear to be in the same room together while discussing the movie. They talk very enthusiastically about how
fairly easy it was to get the film green-lighted, and how Mr. Cage was up for
the film from the get-go. Another nice
feature is the “Access: Drive Angry†setting, and this is where Blu-Ray
outshines standard DVD: you can activate scene-specific features such as seeing
interviews with the cast and crew, and read anecdotes about the vehicles used
in the film – all while you’re watching the movie. Last of all, there are two scenes that were
cut from the film: “You Made Me Cheat,†which is a shortened scene wherein
Piper finds her boyfriend with another woman, and “Morgan Girl,†wherein a
woman gives The Accountant a ride. Both
scenes are no more than two minutes each and also contain isolated
commentaries.
The film includes
easily legible English and Spanish subtitles. The audio is presented in English in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, Spanish
Dolby Digital 5.1, and English Stereo 2.0. The video is presented in High Definition 1.78:1 in 1080p.
I
do not own the necessary hardware to view the film in 3D, but if the effect is
anything like it was in the film’s theatrical exhibition, then it’s worth
seeing like this.
The
Blu-Ray cover artwork is substantially brighter than the film’s theatrical
release poster, the latter of which featured Nicolas Cage and Amber Heard in
much darker profiles.
All
of the video versions have the commentaries and the extra scenes. The Blu-Rays contain the exclusive “Access:
Drive Angry†features.
Recommended.
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