Fletch's Film Review: Drive Angry

There's a school of thought that goes something like this: "Dude, you can't nitpick Drive Angry! You ought to know what you're getting in to when to sit down to watch it!" Basically, that there are films that are so bad that to delve into and analyze them is some sort of exercise reserved for the type of anal-retentive douchebags who have nothing better to do with their time than to point out typos in peoples' Twitter updates.

No. I don't think so. Sounds a whole hell of a lot like circular logic to me: I'll consciously make a movie that's so shitty that for you to criticize it makes you the idiot. How convenient.

Drive Angry makes the films of Michael Bay look like The King's Speech: polished character studies. If you're looking for 3D breasts and muscle cars traveling down a highway at 55 miles per hour (but meant to be much faster, of course), then I suppose you could do worse with your film dollars. But if you're looking for any semblance of narrative, characters thicker than the Grim Reaper's scythe or anything resembling conflict or drama, run like hell.

Now, you could argue that I'm an idiot for expecting anything better than shit out of a Nic Cage movie, and you'd likely be right. But, as is no secret these days, Cage is more than capable of entertaining in ways that go beyond being a respected actor; as he's shown time and again, his over-the-top antics can more than suffice in raising the enjoyment of even the worst material. No such luck here. Brendan Fraser really lost out on a great nemesis in Cage - as he demonstrates in Drive Angry, Nic would make for a compelling mummy. He walks stiltedly, mumbles unintelligibly and is already, well, dead. Slap some Ace bandages on the guy and he'd be a dead ringer for Arnold Vosloo. Then again, that might be a slap in the face to Vosloo - he actually showed signs of life in the role. Cage has one 'emotion' in Drive Angry: morose.

Thank God, then, that William Fichtner was added to the cast as The Accountant. Though the purpose of his character, like that of the film, turns out to be pretty pointless, he brings much-needed verve and energy to the flick any time he turns up onscreen. Would that I could say the same thing for David Morse, who always brings a touch of class to the table, but his role is so insignificant, it very well could have been played by "random 55-year old guy on the street" - much like Fichtner himself in The Dark Knight, you have to wonder why they bother to get solid character actors only to use them such a limited amount of time.

But I guess Drive Angry has bigger problems on its hands and was too busy hammering out the logistics of having scrap metal fly at the screen (in 3-D!) to worry about such trivial matters.

Fletch's Film Rating:

	Expectation: "Darn tootin." (Largely due to some overhyping from people that won't be named. It was maybe a "Decent Fellow" prior to that.)
	Reality: "Whatever." (It only misses a "Painful" rating thanks to Fichtner.)

LAMBScore: