Wednesday 23 February 2011

Drive Angry 3D Review

Title: Drive Angry 3D
Director: Patrick Lussier
Rating: 15
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Amber Heard, William Fichtner


Drive Angry can really be summed up in one word: absurd. I used to like Nicolas Cage, and for a long time Matchstick Men was one of my favourite films. Now it seems Nicolas Cage is a joke. Fresh of the failure of Season of the Witch, Cage stars in this 3D film about driving angrily and killing lots of people in order to get back his granddaughter who has been kidnapped by an evil cult who plan to sacrifice her to bring back Lucifer.


It’s almost as if they tried to incorporate as many of Nicolas Cage’s bad films and make it in to one film. It’s The Wicker Man/Ghost Rider/Gone in Sixty Seconds all wrapped up in to one explosive-car chase-killing spree-mythical film that makes very little sense.

Cage plays Milton (*hint* religious metaphor *hint*) who is on a mission to save granddaughter and seek revenge on the cult that kidnapped her and killed his daughter. The cult believe that by sacrificing Milton’s granddaughter – there’s no explanation why is has to be that particular baby – they will resurrect Lucifer and all be rewarded.

Needing a sexy female sidekick, Milton picks up a waitress named Piper (Amber Heard) in a bar who’s bored of her life and abusive boyfriend so decides to go on the run with a monosyllabic man she met at work. Reckless decision? Nah, just another regular day at work.

However while Milton and sidekick are busy chasing the cult, they are being tracked down by William Fichtner’s character The Accountant (he has no name), who is hell bent on finding Milton but always seems to be one step behind him.

What’s great about this film is that everyone seems to get shot/shot at but still survives. What’s also great is that they don’t explain why until the end of the 104 minute film, so for 100 minutes you just have to accept that Nicolas Cage can get shot in the eye and live to tell the tale.

The supporting cast, Heard and Fichtner, who are both good actors end up completely over shadowed by Cage’s overbearing screen presence which generally consist of him glaring angrily and either ignoring people or answering in monosyllabic syllabic sentences. Maybe Cage didn’t bother to learn his lines and figured all he had to do was shoot guns and drive angrily it would all be okay?

Being female I will admit that members of the male gender may find this film somewhat more enjoyable than I did, but anyone who sees this film and doesn’t laugh with absurdity through half of it needs to have their brains checked.

Rating: Two stars