Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

Recently… like yesterday it feels like… we saw Nic Cage in a brand new movie called ‘Season of the Witch’ which wasn’t nearly as bad as we thought it was going to be but it wasn’t all that good either. In our ignorance we mused that Nic must have more than enough money, and we were curious why he piles these movies on top of each other. But then somebody informed me that right about now Nic probably has just a little bit more money than I do, and that’s not good. For anybody. We apologize to you Nic so keep making these incredibly suspect movies that don’t seem to be giving anybody any kind of ROI outside of yourself, but hopefully you will soon recover all that has been lost. You see Nic can get rich again. Quickly. That is if people start going to see his movies. I’m afraid it looks as if nobody is planning on going to see this movie despite the fact it’s probably the most entertaining movie I’ve seen from Nic in an awful long time. ‘Kick-Ass’ excluded. That wasn’t really a Nic Cage movie anyway.

Apparently that highway to hell also goes out of hell and John Milton (Cage) has just skated out of that sucker and is on a mission. You would think Satan might roadblock that bitch, but who am I to tell him how to run his operation? John’s mission is a simple one. Save his baby granddaughter from the clutches of the completely wacko cult leader Jonah King (Billy Burke) who plans to sacrifice the baby in two days under the light of a full moon which in some way will bring hell on earth. Devil worshipers and their desire to bring Hell on Earth… I tell you. And at what point in these proceedings does God step in and squash this stuff?

As you might imagine there are repercussions and consequences in regards to leaving hell and hot on Milton’s trail is the Devil’s Accountant (William Fichtner) with Fichtner playing this role in a way I truly believe that only he could pull off. The Accountant is oblivious to this whole ‘Hell on Earth’ business and just wants Milton back in hell to get his books balanced.

Also, through circumstance, Milton has picked up a spicy waitress named Piper (Amber Heard) who will be tagging along for the ride for reasons beyond the fact that Amber Heard is very pretty, though I’m not completely sure why Milton picked her for his special mission even though I believe it was explained to me somewhat.

So we have the dude from hell, the pretty girl, the wacky cult leader who likes to twirl his revolver around his finger like he’s Wyatt Earp or somebody, the Accountant who likes to body surf on tanks of Liquid Hydrogen and a baby. There’s a full moon and Satan will soon walk the earth. I guess. I’m not too terribly sure what these whackjobs want. I was always told that Satan’s greatest deception was convincing the world that he doesn’t exist and that would kind of ruin all of that. Hey look… it’s Satan walking the Earth… I guess he’s real. I’m so going to church tomorrow. See what I’m saying?

The Grindhouse genre continues its attempt at a glorious comeback even though it looks like it’s a comeback only a select few of people are interested in seeing. Like myself. My limited awareness of the movie business has told me that movies that make money in our current climate usually involve cute animated inanimate objects (gnomes, toys), depressed metrosexual vampires or gay pirates. If you can’t get fourteen year old girls to see your movie which in turn will make fourteen year old boys follow these girls to the movie, then chances are your movie will not make you any kind of decent Return on Investment. Tragic. There’s seem to be no place for ultra violent, fast moving, over the top, nudity infested, morally suspect action flicks… which is what ‘Drive Angry’ happens to be in spades.

Is ‘Drive Angry’ a good movie you might ask? Well that’s neither here nor there, now is it? A movie doesn’t necessarily have to be ‘good’ to be entertaining and ‘Drive Angry’ is plenty entertaining. Sure, it makes about as much sense as you would imagine a movie featuring the premise of a guy driving a car out hell might make, but it is consistent in its nonsensical approach to whatever world this movie exist in and director Patrick Lussier guides his film as if the Devil himself is nipping at his heels.

There’s not an awful lot to deconstruct here. The 3D implementation was damned impressive though I’m still on record as stating I’d rather not watch 3D movies because two pairs of glasses make my nose hurt, the performances were solid with pretty much the entire cast getting the memo that this isn’t ‘Richard III’ they are creating and it’s almost a guarantee that this is a movie that won’t bore you. It might offend you, but it shouldn’t bore you. Soon to be a smash hit on DVD and Blu-Ray, we give you ‘Drive Angry’.