A Wheelman's Reckoning

I’m a sucker for 70s crime flicks. Especially the sort of stripped down mano y mano pulps that boil away the fat and flash and pit seriously flawed anti-heroes against each other in contests of wills and personal philosophies, not to mention fists & bullets. Walter Hill’s The Driver is just such an exercise & a damn fine one at that. Released on DVD a couple weeks ago, I picked up a copy based on a brief blurb in the NY Times. An AMG reviewer summarized the film as an excuse for a string of dazzling car chases, but there’s actually a lot going on between the pivotal and bracing action sequences.

The set-up is simple and centers on two adversarial archetypes played by Ryan O’Neal and Bruce Dern, criminal and police detective respectively. A small crew of decent characters actors that includes Ronee Blakley and Rudy Ramos rounds out the cast and gives the film even grittier flavor. Sets and locations go a long way in this regard too, roping in various dive bars and blighted urban streets to embellish ennui reflected in the leads’ empty, single-minded lives. The soundtrack is great too, mixing minimalist John Carpenter-style synths and percussion, with snatches of electric Milesian trumpet, twangy guitar, and moody swells by strings. Lastly there’s the grainy 70s film stock and a series of inventively-vantaged long shots that puts the finishing stamp of nouveau noir on the project.

Hill excises whole chunks of extraneous exposition. Footage of busts and robbery planning are either casualties of the cutting room floor or weren’t outlined in the script to begin with. Their absence leaves a lean, pragmatic narrative that wastes little and is reminiscent of the best hardboiled prose. The shaven ballast also gives the film a streak of unpredictability so sorely lacking in at many of today’s multiplexes. It’s a basic point A to point B story with an outcome that appears inexorable. But it still manages to twist and detour into unexpected territory to the degree that I found myself hooting & hollering in approval on several occasions.

None of the characters have names; they don’t need them. Ambiguous motives aren’t an obstacle either; the whys behind what’s happening rarely matter in light of the craft Hill brings to the story. He’s always been a believer in the adage that the devil’s in the details and consequently packs them in sparingly with a keen eye toward allegory and nuance, not to mention respect for audience intelligence.

O’Neal’s affect alternates between deadpan and hang-dog playing the getaway man who’s become so good at his game that the thrills and loot are no-longer satisfying. His driver is a hollow shell filled only with the vapors of an opaque emotional substance. A functional, no-frills suit with low-buttoned collar exposes a tanned neck and ample chest hair. Exhibiting Malibu Ken features weathered and sun-cracked with puffy bags weighing at his eyes he suggests a one time pretty boy fallen from grace onto the rocks of anomie and criminality. Never cracking a smile, he’s the perpetual bastion of grim resolve. The type of guy deserving of that world famous wallet in Pulp Fiction, but one who would never deign to display such a garish badge of cool.

At one point he checks into a fleabag flop-house carrying a crumpled paper sack containing only the essentials: a block of ice, a six-pack of Coors, a bottle of Jack Daniels and a cheap transistor radio tuned to an AM Country station. In another scene, my favorite of the flick, he gives a potential employer an instructive demonstration of his skills behind the wheel, the vacant expression on his face barely flickering as he cuts tire-squealing turns at impossibly high speeds and proceeds to dismantle the car surgically, piece by piece by careening off walls and steam pipes. The editing here is amazing as kinetic outside shots jump-cut to interior ones registering the passengers’ panicked reactions to the vehicular carnage.

Dern’s cop embodies the opposite side of the same loner archetype and he plays it masterfully with his usual seething, understated skill. A macho blowhard who’s come to believe his own self-perpetuated hype as a survival tactic, he routinely bullies his partners and his perps and espouses a highly malleable morality along the way. He’s the natural progenitor to William Peterson’s Secret Service agent in To Live and Die in L.A. - a loose canon whose ruthless, egomaniacal streak outdistances that of his prey. Dern’s detective is one who flippantly talks the talk, but it’s O’Neal’s driver who truly walks the walk.

The film’s first half is surprisingly light on violence, but when the body count starts climbing in the second Hill’s nascent brutality comes out and stretches the PG rating. Some of the dialogue lists on stilted contrivances and a subplot involving a female gambler who abets O’Neal’s escape from the cops deflates thanks to Isabelle Adjani’s dearth of acting chops. But the whole holds up exceedingly well and marks an unabashed win for both Hill and his cast. I’d stack it up confidently beside Bullitt and Vanishing Point as a classic of car-centric cinema and heartily recommend it with two thumbs hoisted, especially for the bargain $6.99 asking price at Best Buy. The dvd package presents widescreen and letterboxed versions of the film, but extras are nominal. An alternate beginning that adds a bit of needless exposition stands as the sole special feature.