Movie Review: Drive Angry (2011)

Drive Angry (2011)

Directed By:
Patrick Lussier

Starring:
Nic Cage: John Milton
Amber Heard: Piper
Billy Burke: Jonah King
William Fitchner: The Accountant

Rating:

Far Fucking Out

Drive Angry is a misnomer of a title, as Nic Cage, here the spare-with-words, poet-with-a-shotgun John Milton, is actually quite calm behind the wheel of many a classic muscle car, the better to wreck, maim, and mutilate the bad guys, who drive stupid or drive scared or drive like their brain's been perforated, which is often the case. Nobody drives angrily. Nic Cage, in fact, is as placid as an empty lake on a windless day. He groans when he gets shot, but otherwise it's tough to tell if any of the video game carnage he's meting out registers, or if it's just another day at the office.

Patience seems to be the key to Milton's passivity, even if "patience" seems like a strange word for a dude with a taste for guns, muscle cars, and vengeance. As it turns out, Milton's spent a lot of time in Hell, and chasing down some hillbillies in a truck is nothing compared to an eternity of suffering. He's back because a satanic cult has killed his daughter and abducted her child, planning to sacrifice it at the next full moon, bringing forth Hell on Earth. Having been to hell (and back, haw haw), Milton has little interest in saving the world--he just wants to save his granddaughter.

In a lot of ways, that's nice. Too many movies in Drive Angry's position would get caught up in the battle between spiritual good and evil, looking for Truth or Reason in what would otherwise have been a very fun action movie. Drive Angry's a movie very much in the grindhouse style and has no time for the moral implications of child sacrifice. It's bad, yes, but the hero's got a sweet ride and a giant gun and a name that lies just beyond plausibility (though John Milton probably wouldn't cause an eye to twitch in a movie not involving hell), and he lives in a world populated by attractive women and over-the-top hicks who want him dead. Sometimes I like going to a movie where I'm not beaten over the head with a muddled high concept. If anything, it's a breath of fresh air.

Joining John Milton on his quest is Piper (Amber Heard), a recently unemployed ex-waitress who owns a Dodge Charger and is recently split from her deadbeat fiance. They're racing cross-country to catch Jonah King (Billy Burke), a generally unlikable dude infamous enough to be mentioned as a murder suspect on TV News, but not enough to be stopped by the cadre of police officers who are there to shoot, be shot at, and watch stuff get blown up good. He's really obvious about his movements, driving around in a flame-painted van and carrying around a cane topped by a human femur. But he's really the MacGuffin, the means to the film's main action. It turns out you can't just waltz out of hell--there's always somebody wanting to take you back.

That somebody is the Accountant (William Fitchner), who seems permanently bored as he chases Milton. What happens is that Milton walks into a bar, a trailer park, or a church and unleashes havoc. The Accountant follows after, picking up the trail. He always seems to be way behind Milton, though he conveniently pops up, Wile E. Coyote style, when the movie needs somebody to run off a cliff. Fitchner is the film's strength, the ambiguity in a film that would have otherwise seen Cage blow over every last satanist like a paper cup in a hurricane. If Cage's detached nature is his charm in this movie, Fitchner matches him one wry one-liner for another.

Alas, things aren't perfect in Drive Angry. There's the business of 3D, for instance. I'm not a fan of the process, but when the advertising blares over and over again that a film is shot in 3D, it can't hurt to take a flier and see what they've done. I was expecting something on the order of Piranha, where the blood, beer, vomit, and dismembered penises flew off the screen in ways so shamelessly exploitative that the paddleball master from House of Wax would have blushed. Instead, the process was taken seriously and no fun was had. Those stupid plastic Ray Bans served little purpose beyond darkening an movie that otherwise would have been bursting with color (considering the orange/blue hues of most action films, darkening Drive Angry via 3D is almost criminal). Then there's the issue of CGI. I understand and appreciate CGI when it is done well and doesn't get in the way of a movie, but one of the key action pieces in Drive Angry involves a hydrogen transport truck that flips over and blows up. Sounds cool, only the CGI is pretty damn lame and ruins the whole bit. Maybe the Dodge Charger got me thinking about Stuntman Mike and about how real cars crashed into real cars, with real dumb people driving them, and maybe I'm being a bit nitpickey, but it's hard to buy into the movie's otherwise charmingly fly-by-night when a movie that practically begs for live action stunt work instead opts for a computer rendering.

Otherwise, this here's a movie where a killing machine named after a poet goes after a cult leader who wants to sacrifice a child. There are tight shots of the polished grills of classic cars. There are short shorts so short you can see the pockets. There are breasts and orgies and a giant, ridiculous gun. Drive Angry is shameless fun. How shameless? It's end credits feature a Meat Loaf song. A recent Meat Loaf song.