Drive Hard (2014) John Cusack, Thomas Jane, Zoe Ventoura, Christopher Morris Movie Review

Drive Hard (2014)   2/52/52/52/52/5


John Cusack in Drive Hard (2014)

Tries Too Hard

It was just another day for former racing driver Peter Roberts (Thomas Jane) as his wife bemoaned him sinking their money in to a driving school which he runs not too successfully. But that all changes when he meets his client, Simon Keller (John Cusack), who dressed in black from head to toe doesn't seem too bothered about having a driving lesson or in truth need one. And it all becomes clear when Keller asks Roberts to pull over and he goes and robs a bank using Roberts as his getaway driver. Now the unlikely duo find themselves trying to evade not only the police but some machine gun toting heavies in SUVs.

I have an entertaining idea, a robber cons a former racing driver turned driving instructor into being a getaway driver during a driver lesson. Okay, then what? Well erm er erm we have some corrupt people within the banking organization and we have some odd couple humour as the driver and robber bicker. And what else? Well I suppose we can throw some twists in there where bad guys are good and so on but really the movie is all about the comedy of the odd couple. That is how I imagining it might have gone when the writer of "Drive Hard" presented the idea to a studio and in fairness on the proverbial paper the idea has legs but the end product... well it leaves a lot to be desired.

Thomas Jane in Drive Hard (2014)

In the end "Drive Hard" seems to be the result of some wrong casting, Thomas Jane doesn't convince as a former driver or has the right chemistry with Cusack. But it is also a case that it tries too hard with John Cusack going over the top to make Keller quirky. And as for all the other stuff such as the sexy agent trying to track them down and the shady men in suits, well they are just filler.

What this all boils down to is that perhaps on paper "Drive Hard" was a good idea but the end result leaves a lot to be desired with so little of it actually ending up entertaining or at least as entertaining as it should be. To put this in to context if "Drive Hard" has been made in the 80s it would have starred Wilder & Pryor and would have been a riot.


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