{"id":6965,"date":"2013-08-31T15:40:29","date_gmt":"2013-08-31T19:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=6965"},"modified":"2013-08-31T15:40:29","modified_gmt":"2013-08-31T19:40:29","slug":"br-driver-the-1978","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=6965","title":{"rendered":"BR: Driver, The (1978)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>D<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Excellent\/ BR Transfer: Excellent\/ BR Extras: Very Good<\/p>\n

Label: Twilight Time\/ Region: All \/\u00a0Released: July 23, 2013<\/p>\n

Genre: Action \/ Crime \/ Car Chase<\/p>\n

Synopsis: A sharp & persistent cop is determined to collar a getaway driver involved in a string of violent downtown robberies.<\/p>\n

Special Features: Isolated Stereo Music Track \/ Alternate Opening \/ Theatrical Trailer \/ 8-page colour booklet with liner notes by film historian Julie Kirgo \/ Limted to 3000 copies \/ Available exclusively from Screen Archives Entertainment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

Walter Hill\u2019s minimalist action film seemed to come long after the best and most elaborate car chases in caper & crime films had been made, and yet that time gap between Bullitt <\/strong>(a film on which he contributed uncredited second unit assistance), Gone in 60 Seconds<\/a><\/strong>, The Italian Job<\/strong> (1969), The French Connection<\/strong> (1971) and his own film in 1978 perhaps convinced Hill there was no need to craft a scenario with sudden plot twists and multiple characters with shifting allegiances.<\/p>\n

Even in its stripped-down form, The Driver<\/strong> follows Hill\u2019s standard linear plotting \u2013 we begin with a hired Driver (Ryan O\u2019Neal) snatching a car to pick-up his clients, a chase, his arch nemesis on the police force, a test of loyalties, and the final chase & wrap-up \u2013 but it\u2019s so skillfully built like a Detroit roadster with a solid performance engine, a sleek yet muscular style, and all the basic accoutrements you need to get from Point A to B.<\/p>\n

Twilight Time\u2019s Blu-ray includes a two-scene, \u00a0alternate opening (not present on the 2005 Fox DVD), which served to introduce the film\u2019s two female characters – The Player (Isabelle Adjani) and The Connection (Ronee Blakley) \u2013 and the trio of cops who rive around the city in a nondescript van, tracking the Driver\u2019s moves.<\/p>\n

According to Julie Kirgo\u2019s excellent liner notes, both scenes were imposed by Fox to help explain characters, but they were obviously dropped for being wholly redundant; the first scene also spoils the revelation that the Driver\u2019s agent is a woman, which is a nice surprise, given Hill\u2019s never been known to write flattering female characters. They\u2019re either sexy d\u00e9cor, or in The Driver, they\u2019re a suited and emotionless agent, and a possibly duplicitous love interest.<\/p>\n

The only character who smiles with genuine emotion is The Detective (Bruce Dern) because he\u2019s an egocentric, efficient, sonofabitch and likes to remind everyone around him that he is the best, and he will win any battle. The Driver\u2019s equally arrogant \u2013 the sequence where he destroys a mint Mercedes to a set of undesirable clients is the perfect synthesis of his contempt for humanity \u2013 but he\u2019s amazingly calm during any crisis, making O\u2019Neal – not the most dramatically diverse actor – perfectly suited for the role of this hard-boiled anti-hero. (Stanely Kubrick also recognized his relative blandness, and cast him quite successfully in Barry Lyndon<\/a> <\/strong>[M<\/a>] in 1975.)<\/p>\n

There really easy much to this cat & mouse tale of a cop trying to collar a \u2018cowboy\u2019 getaway driver, but the deftness of the direction \u2013 even the fairly minimal dialogue \u2013 and some of the best car chases ever put on film make this an instant cult classic. It\u2019s no surprise it vanished from distribution for years, and found new audiences when it started showing up on video and cable TV, but like French Connection<\/strong>, the stunt drivers are generally going full speed down streets, around corners, and every nook and cranny of the grimy downtown industrial suburbs that lack any kind of ornamentation. Hill either wanted to set the film in a generic American city, or de-emphasize all d\u00e9cor so the focus was solely on the characters, and the chases \u2013 which go on for epic lengths. Not unlike Grand Prix<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] (1966), Hill also stuck his star in as many chase shots as possible, and there are a number where the camera car seems to be following O\u2019Neal as he\u2019s driving in tandem with a police car about to get crunched in lengthy takes. The only conceit is that while the first two chases involve hot pursuit by the police, they seem non-existent in the finale, where the two rival cars break every motor vehicle on record with total impunity \u2013 a conceit also present in the ludicrous-yet-fun chase in Henry Verneuil\u2019s 1971 The Burglars<\/a><\/strong>.)<\/p>\n

Around the time of Streets of Fire <\/strong>(1984), Hill\u2019s films started to move from minimalist downgrades of popular genres with mythic characters (or perhaps said differently, western archetypes distilled into contemporary action tales) to the filmic equivalent of a kinetic graphic novel, and while he also digressed with action comedies, there\u2019s something rewarding in watching a director who, in his second film, knew when to change angles, and when to let the seething conflicts between two characters remain fixed in a locked shot because it worked better.<\/p>\n

In addition to the alternate opening, TT\u2019s BR includes a trailer and an isolated stereo score of Michael Small\u2019s equally minimalism score. (Small was no stranger to suspenseful scenarios, having scored Klute<\/strong> and Marathon<\/strong> Man.<\/strong>) Note: this transfer recomposes the image from the prior DVD’s 1.78:1 to the original theatrical 1.85:1.<\/p>\n

Also released by TT on BT is Hard Times<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] (1975), Hill\u2019s directorial debut, a similarly macho film with a more atypical story.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2013 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Vendor Search Links:<\/em><\/p>\n

Amazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a>\"\" \"\"—New movie releases on iTunes<\/a>\"\"
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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0D<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ D . Film: Excellent\/ BR Transfer: Excellent\/ BR Extras: Very Good Label: Twilight Time\/ Region: All \/\u00a0Released: July 23, 2013 Genre: Action \/ Crime \/ Car Chase Synopsis: A sharp & persistent cop is determined to collar a getaway driver involved in a string of violent downtown […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[2199,2200,2198,781,115,2189],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1Ol","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6965"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6965"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6975,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6965\/revisions\/6975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}