Year of release: 2011.
Budget: $45 – 50 Million.
Gross Revenue: $40,117,335.
The best grindhouse films don't just contain scenes of sex, violence and action just for the sake of it. These elements are very important staples in the grindhouse experience to be sure, but there is something else going on in the great exploitation pictures that separate them from their mediocre rivals. I don't think that this characteristic is easy to define, but I shall endeavour to define it: The best grindhouse movies contain an elusive bad-assery that is never definitively discussed within the framework of the film, but simmers in the subtext none-the-less.
Consider Kill Bill: Vol 1, which is a kung-fu film in the true grindhouse style. It contains violence (the Bride's showdown against the Crazy 88), seedy sex (the disgusting Buck who pimps out comatose patients for “...seventy-five dollars a fuck...”), and action (again the Crazy 88 showdown). However, there is something going on in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 that is really quite sophisticated. The Bride is a character unlike any other in cinema. It's not just that she's a female; there are dozens of action movies with females in the lead role. It's that she is an autonomous killer, who kicks ass without asking permission from a man. This is a stark juxtaposition to a film like Charlie's Angels, where the female characters are still essentially submissive to the aforementioned Charlie.
So! Where does Drive Angry fit into this? Well a few weeks ago I reviewed a movie called Hobo With A Shotgun and gave it three-and-a-half stars, citing that something seemed to be missing from it. What was missing was this above-mentioned elusive bad-assery. The Hobo was bad-ass, but he was still an essentially good character. Drive Angry is more successful as a film because the protagonist is a bad man trying to achieve redemption. Indeed this single character difference makes Drive Angry far more interesting than Hobo. The audience feels more empathy for Nicolas Cage's John Milton, precisely because of this redemptive angle, and it makes the action more enjoyable as a result. Cage is a phenomenal actor when he wants to be, so when he delivers lines like “Thank-you Webster but I don't believe I'll be having that beer just now; not unless I'm drinking it from Jonah King's skull”, you believe him. What's more, such lines fill you with a morbid tingling glee for the inevitable blood-thirsty climax.
What's more is that Cage's multi-dimensional character gets to develop in an insanely good plot: John Milton has escaped from Hell-- stealing Satan's shot-gun on the way-- to save his infant grand-daughter. It's so simple, and yet so brilliant. What follows is a mad-cap caper involving girls, guns, cars, cults and blood. Cage is chasing the cult, and the Devil's accountant (played brilliantly by William Fitchner) is chasing Cage. To give you an idea of the kind of action to expect, let me tell you that there is a gunfight that takes place during a sex scene, and the sex doesn't stop until the last bullet has hit the ground. You have to see it to believe it.
What could be improved? Some of the gore in this movie is obviously rendered using CGI, and I'm really not too keen on it. It's certainly because I'm used to the squibs and dyed red corn-syrup of the 80s and 90s. I just don't think that computer blood looks real enough. There were a few scenes of violence that just sort of took me out of the picture all together, and I don't think it would have been a problem if they weren't CGI. I understand that the excessive CGI is related to the fact that the film hit theatres in 3D, and maybe it looked good in that format, but it didn't really translate to 2D well. Apart from that, I would've also liked a little more character development, but it's all good.
Ultimately, I just had a lot of fun in Drive Angry, and if you set aside the hype, and prepare yourself for a true grindhouse experience, you'll have fun as well.
Four Stars:
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