Movie review: Drive Angry 3D

by John P. Meyer

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Director Patrick Lussier seems to be trying to out-grindhouse Robert Rodriguez.

Todd Farmer and Patrick Lussier team once again to script (Farmer and Lussier) and direct (Lussier) the latest Nic Cage vehicle (see how I slipped that word "vehicle" in there?!), Drive Angry 3D. The two worked together previously on 2009's My Bloody Valentine in much the same capacities.

One of the coolest things about Drive Angry has to be the fact that co-producer credit goes to a guy named Ed Cathell III, which I misread when it appeared in the end credits as CATCHell, with a "c" before the "h," which I took to be pretty damned ironic because this movie is exactly and precisely about catching Hell. Or the guy who came from it, anyway.

(In summary, I hope you're able to mis-read the co-director's name the same way I did.)

Another cool thing about Drive Angry is the fact that it features two North Texas actors with whom I'm moderately well acquainted: Bryan Massey and Arianne Martin. Now, to be brutally honest, you're going to have to look hard and fast to catch a glimpse of Arianne, who plays "Milton's Daughter (Older)," a character who is, in fact, dead by the time events chronicled in the film are taking place, and thus whom we see only briefly in flashback and then once again in a photo. (I think.) But if you're looking for her, you will indeed see her. Heck, I saw her even when I wasn't looking for her, because I didn't know she was going to be in the movie.

Massey, on the other hand, is highly visible for the span of time it takes for his character — "Trooper #1" — to catch a bullet fired by the gorgeous Amber Heard, who's playing a tough-as-nails (and, of course, gorgeous) outlaw woman named Piper.

(O.K., O.K., Piper's not actually an outlaw until she fires the bullet that kills Bryan Massey as "Trooper #1," but she has certainly already displayed that outlaw attitude, fist-fighting with Christa Campbell's naked character Mona whom she's just caught cowgirling her boyfriend Frank, played by co-scripter Todd Farmer. Lucky bastard.)

Speaking of cowgirling and the cowgals who bring it, you'll have no trouble whatsoever spotting fully-undressed NYPD Blue alumna Charlotte Ross in the saddle with fully-dressed Nic Cage as he performs (ahem!) the most memorable shootout scene in the movie.

See, Ross' character Candy (sweet!) has — um — joined Cage's character Milton in his motel room adjacent to the Bull By the Balls honky tonk when a gang of evil Satanists busts into their love nest and start pulling guns and swinging scythes and what not. Without missing a stroke, Milton slings his .45 auto into action, spinning round and about with Candy still attached as he engages and dispatches one assailant after another.

That is one determined performance. And I don't mean the shooting. (Or maybe I do.)

From the looks of this 105-minute thing called Drive Angry 3D, director Lussier is trying to out-grindhouse accomplished action auteur Robert Rodriguez, and he has a fine go at it without precisely hitting the mark — the result being that we can appreciate the bloody, violent, stylishly over-produced action without ever getting our tongues firmly planted in our cheeks, which we have no trouble doing when watching a Rodriguez film. In short: Lussier needs a little more practice at the game in order to get the tone just right.

In terms of plot: John Milton (Cage) escapes from Hell to avenge the death of his daughter at the hands of Satanist messiah Jonah King (Billy Burke, modeling his character after a cross between Elvis and Billy Bob Thornton). Also, King has baby-napped Milton's daughter's infant child and plans to sacrifice her to Beelzebub in order to bring about a New World Order that threatens to make the Tea Partiers look like a preferable alternative.

Piper (Heard) partners with Milton by happy accident, though the teaming up becomes less happy for her after she's captured by King's redneck goons and forced to ride without benefit of a seat belt in their lane-changing Winnebago. (The horror... the horror!)

Complicating the extended rundown scenario is a creepy guy known as The Accountant (William Fichtner, who does creepy about as well as anyone). The Accountant has been dispatched by Satan to return Milton to his rightfully hellacious eternal abode. But working in Milton's favor is a seemingly antique multi-barreled pistol which fires bullets that put the fear of godkilling into even semi-supernatural beings.

Lussier slicks up the abundant action sequences through the (over)use of slo-mo and cgi, and tarts up the gung-ho, devil-may-care vibe factor by scoring the film with hard-drivng rock tunes such as "Raise a Little Hell" and "F**k the Pain Away" (Piper's theme). Add in a selection of vintage muscle cars with engines of unfashionably large displacement, lots of guns, and even more sexy naked women than I've already mentioned, and you've got yourself an R-rated exploitation actioner to go along with the R-rated raunchy comedy I reported on yesterday.

And that's why there are two days in every weekend.

To find movie showtimes for Drive Angry 3D, click here.

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