Walter Hill directs Ryan O’Neal, Bruce Dern and Isabelle Adjani in this crime thriller about a getaway driver trying to stay ahead of the maverick cop who sets up a heist to catch him. 

Perennially underrated action auteur Walter Hill doing urban car chases. Scruffy Bruce Dern as a cocksure, brinkmanship playing, major crimes dick. Isabelle Adjani in loose suits and massive brimmed hats. It should be perfection. It isn’t. The middle hour stalls with nowhere near enough plot in the tank. The dialogue and the characters just loop over the same scenes in different locations and costumes. Considering a lot of it is already obviously retrofitted spare parts, recycled from Walter Hill’s own screenplay adaptation of The Getaway, this feels especially creatively cheap. As a mood piece The Driver just about slips through the dragnet, and as a showcase vehicle for Dern it rocks. But he ain’t the protagonist. A vacant Ryan O’Neal is.

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