Having spent the last decade behind bars
after a bank heist that went decidedly wrong, resulting in the death of
his accomplice brother, amongst others, ‘The Driver’ (Dwayne Johnson)
wants revenge on those who set him up, and on the gunmen that
slaughtered his crew. Hot on his tail are a dashing if distractingly
poncey hitman (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) and the world’s most ineffectual
pair of cops, played by Billy Bob Thornton and Sin City’s Carla
Gugino, though their bumbling means that Johnson can commit as much
mayhem as he desires and simply stroll from crime scene to crime scene,
which is somewhat beneficial to the narrative as a whole.
Though Johnson no longer goes by his Rock
moniker he’s looking more mountainous than ever, and is perfectly cast
as the bulky, brooding ex-con hell bent on revenge - he even manages a
few tears on occasion. Billy Bob, he of the Steve Buscemi
pasty-chain-smokers-with-bad-teeth school of thespianism, is also
predictably convincing as the junkie cop struggling to main some
semblance of a career, and family life, in the lead up to retirement
(although he doesn’t once utter the words ‘I’m too old for this shit’
it’s clearly implied). The film can’t really be accused of being
intelligent, or even particularly cogent – the majority of its
characters are straight from the pages of a Marvel comic book, and the
twist ending can be seen coming a mile off – but as far as big budget
revenge movies go it certainly has its moments.
Audio & Video
There are a couple of minor annoyances with
the disc - it takes a minute or so to load, the menu options creak
around at a snail’s pace and every time you press stop the whole thing
reloads again from the start, rather than simply resuming
automatically. That said the picture quality is pretty schmick, with
the slightly grainy HD transfer perfectly suiting the gritty subject
matter, and the score courtesy of longtime Darren Aronofsky collaborator
Clint Mansell. Though the soundtrack is nowhere near as mesmerising as
that of Requiem for a Dream or Black Swan and relies
rather more heavily on go-to movie songs like ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ and
Kenny Rogers’ ‘I Just Dropped in to See What Condition My Condition Was
In’ (a near blasphemy considering its iconic use in The Big Lebowski)
it’s a solid effort that displays suitable clarity and directionality in
DTS-HD surround.
Special Features
A few decent extras are on offer, including
the film’s original ending introduced by director George Tillman,
several deleted scenes, a couple of featurettes, animatics and a handful
of trailers.
