Starring: Ryan O’Neal, Bruce Dern, and Isabelle Adjani
Reviewer: Brett Gallman
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Reviewer's Rating: ***½ (Three Stars)
Those are the first words spoken by the film’s title character, and they don’t come until about fifteen minutes in. However, by then, Ryan O’Neal has already firmly asserted his presence on the film; he’s also established his function. He is The Driver, as evidenced by a spectacular chase sequence that introduces the film’s minimalist style, which relies on dynamic angles and quick edits to create tension. O’Neal eventually meets with similar archetypes defined by their function, such as “The Connection” (Ronee Blakely), “The Player,” (Isabelle Adjani), and “The Detective” (Bruce Dern). They inhabit a deterministic universe that’s stripped of the usual minutia of life (it also wisely dispenses with the romantic sub-plot you might expect to emerge); each scene is packed with portent, and Hill’s film propels with swift, lean momentum.
It’s essentially a re-appropriated Western, right down to O’Neal’s enigmatic gunslinger who ironically dislikes guns (but that doesn’t prevent him from engaging in a tense showdown). Dern would be the sheriff, albeit an interesting one; ostensibly, he’s just doing his job, but his abrasive nature casts him in the villain role. I wonder if Hill isn’t toying with expectations a bit with these characters, perhaps revealing our insistence that we bring our own sense of order to a narrative. We want the law-breaking driver to evade authorities, which may also just be tapping into that primal desire to revel in anti-heroism, which was particularly magnified in the post-Bonnie & Clyde 70s.
Despite being stripped to its bare essentials of action, The Driver manages to be one of those films that says a lot despite its taciturn nature; I think there’s something to be said about the way these characters only interact out of necessity, perhaps revealing a cold detachment of a modern life that’s dominated by tasks and roles. Maybe I’m looking into it too much; if so, there’s always the car chases, which are among some of the best committed to film.
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