Drive Angry Review

This film is Awesome….do I even need to say more?...ok then I will.

To give a brief summary this movie is about a Milton (Nicholas Cage) escaping from hell to save his baby granddaughter, while being pursued by the Devil’s accountant.

The thing that really makes this film work is the sheer silliness of the whole thing. Right from the ‘badass’ music that plays every time Milton does something awesome, to the fact that he needs to save his granddaughter within two days but seemingly won’t travel to her by any other means than a muscle car.

And that’s another thing; I might just be talking for the male population here, but the matte black 69’ Charger that Milton and his waitress sidekick rock around in for most of the film is awesome. A beautiful car with an awesome noise (always important) and a classic look that just says ‘I contain a vengeance driven escaped soul from hell and a really hot waitress’…well maybe not all that, but it says ‘badass’ at the very least. And the chevelle that they use after that is even better and it’s red and it has a stripe that makes it go faster. In case you haven’t noticed, this film did kinda tap into the juvenile I-like-the-explosions part of my mind, but since I spend most of my time hating the kinds of films that try to do that, I count the fact that it did as a big win.

The next big win in this film is Nicholas Cage. He swaps out his normal mantle of horrendously overacting in favour of making more of an emotionless, almost sadistic character out of Milton. I watched this film, just after watching a Steven Seagal film and the similarities in character lead me to believe that Milton’s personality is a very direct parody of Seagal and other B-movie action heroes like him. This is no more evident than in a sex scene between Milton and a waitress, in which he effectively keeps all his clothes on (including a pair of sunglasses) and neutrally sits under the waitress, with no indication of any kind of pleasure being taken in the act.

Clearly Cage’s equal is William Fichtner as “the Accountant” a character poised between comedy and deadly dangerousness. What struck me most about this demon (which is never stated but presumed by the fact that he works for Satan) is how reasonable he is. Yeah he’s still pretty murderous and nasty, but he lives up to the name ‘Accountant’ simply because he’s only ever motivated by what’s best for his books. As far as personality goes, he oscillates between being the boss who tells you just how much choice you have in matters and an excitable onlooker.

It’s also the Accountant who steals the show in terms of quotes, I don’t want to give too many away, but his first introduction of himself is pretty good

Accountant: “I’m the Accountant.”

Fat guy: “Is the that supposed to mean something to me?”

Accountant: “it will if I add you to the books.”

I know it doesn’t look like much when I write it, but trust me when paired with Fichtner’s style and tone, it come across as more of a lecture to a child than anything else.

And that leads to the next pretty good thing about this film. There are Devil worshippers in this film and it’s made clear that all agents of hell, including Satan find said worshippers really annoying and the fact that these worshippers attempt to lecture both Milton and the Accountant (at different points of the film) about Hell, keeping in mind that these are two people who come from Hell, they’re painted not as the sinister villains (as is the convention), but more as morons and posers.

Amber Heard is pretty awesome as Piper; Milton’s waitress sidekick, whom he selected based on the fact that she drove a 69’ Charger.

Not really much more to say; the cars a good, the characters are good, the soundtrack is awesome!

The only negative criticism I could give it is that, despite parodying the classic mad max action hero thing, it’s still very much aimed at the male audience. I know some girls who’d probably like it, but the majority of women will probably get tired of the explosions and not understand the science behind a stripe on a car making it go faster.