Film Reviews

Drive Angry

• Rating:
• Director: Patrick Lussier
• Starring: Amber Heard
• Details: US/105mins 16

Now here's a film that knows exactly what it is. The cinematic equivalent of a bar fight in a strip club somewhere in Hicksville, Drive Angry has a great sense of humour, and simple, purposeful characters. Nicolas Cage has been playing this type of cheesy, horribly groomed character for years, but for once the bad haircut finds itself centre stage in a flick that embraces the lunacy.
Cage is a former resident of hell who manages to break out so he can track down the cult leader who murdered his daughter, ate her remains and stole her baby. On his way to hand said cannibal cult leader a pasting, he bumps into Amber Heard's brassy blonde waitress, who has just caught her boyfriend using some miscellaneous boobs as a bouncy castle. Together they try to track down the baby, whilst avoiding William Fichtner's "accountant" from hell, who has been tasked with bringing back Cage's rogue badass.
Films like Machete and Grindhouse have previously attempted the B movie homage, but it never really worked. Maybe Tarantino and Rodriguez were coming from too informed a place - ramming their knowledge of these little-known productions down our throats. When a film is less concerned with boasting, and more with embracing what was entertaining about those films in the first place, then it has a fighting chance. Drive Angry is absolutely that film. It knows what type of production it is, and doesn't for a second attempt to be post-modern, or talk down to its viewers. It's Nic Cage, with bad hair, a cool car, a hot blonde and a shitload of big guns on a revenge mission.
Cage is less manic here than you'd expect, instead letting his locks to the talking. It's ridiculous, but for once, the mullet captures the tone of the film perfectly. The days where his hair dictated the quality of a movie may be over. Amber Heard is a cracking sidekick; sexy, strong and comfortable flooring an American muscle car - she should really be a bigger star than she is already. But it's Fichtner who steals the movie from both of them. The popular character actor's deadpan delivery "Hey you, fat f**k" and gleefully belligerent behaviour a highlight in a film full of guilty pleasures.
Utterly ridiculous but, for once, for Nicolas Cage, in a very good way.

Review by Mike Sheridan