Drive Angry is best described as an absurd comic book comic book come to life. Both a homage to, and parody of ’70s exploitation films, Drive Angry shifts into high gear and never slows down. Using the loose framework of revenge story, the film dabbles in the supernatural as a way of addressing the themes of good and evil. However, if you want to enjoy Drive Angry, don’t think about it. Just enjoy it for what it is.
Nicholas Cage (who seems to have a movie out every two months lately), stars as John Milton. Having escaped from Hell, to retrieve his infant granddaughter, the straggly looking Milton is on the trail of a cult leader Jonah King (Billy Burke), who’s kidnapped the baby in preparation for a very important sacrificial event.
Initally, it seems as though Milton might be some kind of cyborg, chasing down bad guys and blowing them away without hesitation. However, he does show compassion when he saves a waitress, Piper (Amber Heard), from a beating by her boyfriend and joins her on a road trip to Louisiana. While Milton works to find King, he is in turn being chased by the mysterious entity known only as The Accountant (a scene-stealing William Fitchner), whose impenetrability in the face of cold-blooded murder is matched only by his dry wit.
Drive Angry is a piece of popcorn trash, and proud of it. Not to be taken seriously, While the central storyline concerns the rescuing of an infant, the filmmakers are more concerned with naked ladies, fast cars, and shotgun blasts. To complain about the films gratuitous nudity is ridiculous. The whole project has gratuitous everything else, too. From its devil-worshipers to its machete-wielding assassins, to the fact that every character swears constantly and talks like a badass, everything about the film is excessive.
Drive Angry was directed by Patrick Lussier and written by him and Todd Farmer, who also worked together on 2009’s My Bloody Valentine. One gets the feeling the filmmakers thought this movie was cooler than it is. Billy Burke’s cult leader, sees himself as a badass even though he never once proves it throughout the course of the movie, while Cage’s Milton is a little too calm considering he just broke out of Hell. While they try to make up for this with some ridiculously over-the-top set pieces, the only one that works is a sequence ripped straight from Shoot ‘Em Up where Cage takes on a bunch of goons while having sex with a woman.
Maybe it’s the fact the Cage appears to be mailing in another performance, but as a story. Drive Angry is just over-the-top cheese. If you like those kind of flicks, by all means, give it a look.
Drive Angry looks flawless in its 1080p Blu-ray transfer. Taken straight from the film’s original digital elements, everything is spot on. Black levels are consistent, detail is razor-sharp from start to finish, and the film’s somewhat-washed-out color palette is presented with excellent definition and clarity. No compression artifacts, and no edge enhancement are in evidence.
The DTS-HD Master Audio sound mix here is also impressive, though not quite as solid as its video counterpart. The major culprit is its sheer fullness. Many elements of the mix get trampled during some of the movie’s more cacophonous action sequences.
A Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 sound mix is included, as are English SDH and Spanish subtitles.
We get the following special features:
- Audio Commentary from writer/director Patrick Lussier and writer/actor Todd Farmer: Both sit together for this, and give a screen-specific look at the film’s development, script and story, cast, characters and performances, effects, stunts and action, visual effects, music and editing, sets and locations, costumes, and a few related areas.
- Access: Drive Angry mixes trivia, interviews/behind the scenes clips, and “Milton’s Mayhem”. In the interviews we hear from Lussier, Farmer, production designer Nathan Amondson, and actors Amber Heard, William Fichtner, and Billy Burke. The comments relate to the writing and development of the script, characters, cast and performances, stunts and action, production design, weapons, and a few other production topics.
- Deleted Scenes (1:36) We get two of them. “You Made Me Cheat” (0:36) and “Morgan Girl” (1:00). “Cheat” offers a brief extension to an existing sequence, while “Morgan Girl” gives us a little more of the Accountant. The latter is the more interesting, but neither adds much to the proceedings.
