: Premium Rush
I had wanted to see this in theaters but missed it. The plot seems slim for a full movie — a Manhattan bike messenger risks his life to complete a delivery as a bad guy tries to stop him — but the director does a great job in keeping the pace going and gradually revealing details about the why behind everything.
There’s not a huge amount of character development; this is mostly a frenetic, non-stop action film. But there’s enough to make the story work. For instance, we learn our bike messenger hero actually has a law degree but so hates the idea of working in an office all day he pedals his ass off through Manhattan traffic instead.
I really liked the simplicity of the plot. I won’t get into the details here as I don’t want to spoil anything, but my dread going in was that the reasons for the bike messenger being attacked was a giant government conspiracy or something equally improbable. Instead, we get something more down-to-earth and realistic. It’s the equivalent of a heist movie where we’re stealing fifty grand instead of fifty million: the amount is irrelevant if the significance to the characters is the same. So many films make the mistake of raising the amount to something absurd just to make it seem more exciting to the audience. Here the overall stakes are smaller but that doesn’t reduce the excitement level at all.
I also really liked the visuals of the film. Making bike riding exciting and not repetitive, even with crazy New York traffic and a threatening bad guy, is no mean feat. Here we’ve got 3D overhead maps of Manhattan we’re swooping through, showing us the bike messenger’s potential route, as well as cool “what if” sequences the rider makes while he tries to figure out the best solution out of a traffic jam. Both of these techniques could get old if done too much, but the film only employs them a few times, so they stay visually fresh.
In the end, though the film isn’t particularly deep and doesn’t really have much of a message, it’s a lot of a fun and terrific action ride. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Topic: [/movie] |
