If there is one thing you can depend on when Nicholas Cage is in a movie is that he will be intense as hell. In Drive Angry his intensity works towards delivering a film that is fun, campy, violent and surprisingly beautiful on Blu-ray.
The Film
Nicholas Cage stars in the film as Milton, a man who did bad things, was killed and is rotting in hell. Part of his torment was watching his daughter succumb to a cult leaders will, bear his child and then be brutally murdered by him, the child being taken for a future sacrifice. With a desire to save his granddaughter Milton does the impossible, he steals a magical weapon, a seemingly magical 64 Buick Riviera (although it gets destroyed easy enough) and escapes Hell. How he does this is never shown, but it would have made a hell of an opening sequence. Instead we see Milton starting to hunt down members of the cult looking for information on his granddaughter’s location.
On his journey Milton meets (and rescues) a feisty and attractive roadhouse waitress named Piper (Amber Heard) and brings her along for the ride. She accompanies him because of some strange attachment and because she got stuck in the middle and is an accomplice to Milton’s mayhem. Also along for the ride, albeit in a different way, is The Accountant (William Fichtner) who is a minion from hell who will take Milton back no matter the cost.
Over the course of the movie Milton travels ever closer to the cult leader Jonah King (Billy Burke) killing everyone in his way without remorse or pity. The Accountant does the same as he tries to track down Milton and bring him back to hell. In the end the movie is quite predictable and a very violent and flashy showdown caps off Miltons mission of vengeance.
Drive Angry is not a terribly good film, in fact take all the pieces apart and it is a terrible film, but it is just so much fun that it should be the next cult classic of this generation. The violence is over the top, there is rampant nudity, the language is as harsh as you could imagine and the performances from the stars are campy to the point of being sublime.
Nicholas Cage gives an intense and focused performance and delivers carnage and one-liners as if he truly enjoys them. Fichtner’s Accountant is so cool, cold and badass that he could have been the main star of this film. Everyone else (Piper and Jonah King included) are so much window dressing to Cage and Fichtner’s scene chewing performances.
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