Why isn’t The Driver mentioned in the same breath as Dirty Harry, The French Connection, Dog Day Afternoon and other bona fide ’70s crime classics? It’s excellent and — sorry, Warriors fans — easily Walter Hill’s personal best as writer/director.
Never a great actor, Ryan O’Neal (Barry Lyndon) also is atop his game here because he has so little to say. With a stoic face and shirt unbuttoned to his chest, he plays a professional getaway driver, perhaps the finest for hire on the West Coast. We see why almost immediately, as an underground casino heist gives way to an incredible nighttime chase through the streets, alleyways and parking garages of L.A.
At the scene, a woman (Isabelle Adjani, Ishtar) clearly sees the wheelman’s face, yet lies to the corrupt police detective (a scary Bruce Dern, Silent Running) about it. This so infuriates the cop that he plots a big-score bank robbery specifically to “catch the cowboy that’s never been caught.”
Moody, confident and quiet until tires squeal and sirens blare, The Driver is awash in so much atmosphere that lots were left over for others to soak up, most notably Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, the 2011 film whose taut opening pursuit in particular pays transparent homage. Until the end, I hadn’t noticed that Hill failed to give his characters actual names — they’re credited with crime-fic descriptors like “The Player” and “Exchange Man” — which only goes to show how engrossing this undervalued gem is. —Rod Lott
There’s probably a hearty list of films where the main characters have no names to speak of. Drive, Faster, They Live…
A favorite of mine. I not a fan of either Ryan O’neal or Bruce Dern but both of them are perfect in this film.
It tempting to claim that films like the Transporter and Drive steal from this film but this film take a lot from Jean Pierre Melville’s
Le Samoruai, particularly the main character that has no life other than what he does.
Two other favorites of mine, john Woo the Killer and Micheal Mann the Thief deal with the same type of Character. Both Directors credit the influence of Le Samoruai.
Also not to forget this film was the inspiration/template for the excellent Driver series of games on Playstation et al.