Drive Angry

As is the current trend with Nicolas Cage films, Drive Angry has a certain sense of craziness. If you're in the right frame of mind, you can actually enjoy some of its goofy style, especially if you're into both gun and car porn. Drive Angry has plenty of both.

Cage stars as John Milton (not a coincidence that he shares the name of the author of Paradise Lost), who is trying to recover his baby granddaughter from a Satanic cult, led by the charismatic Billy Burke. Meanwhile, Cage is tracked by a suit-wearing fellow who claims to be an FBI agent but calls himself The Accountant (William Fichtner). When he kills someone by flicking a baseball bat you get the idea that Fichtner was not trained at Quantico.

Early in the film Cage enlists the help of Amber Heard, a pissed-off waitress. At first he is interested in her car, a '69 Dodge Charger, but eventually Heard proves herself in combat. It's not a demanding role, but Heard gives it a certain spirit that's appealing, especially when she's wearing Daisy Dukes.

Cage is fully in his weird guy role, but there's a good reason for this. I won't spoil it, but when Cage says he was in prison he's not quite telling the truth. When David Morse shows up as his old friend named Webster, it reinforces the gimmick.

Drive Angry was directed by Patrick Lussier, and written by Lussier and Todd Farmer (who also plays the guy skewered by a bat). The script has a droll sense of humor, not taking itself very seriously. This isn't high art, but for drive-in fare it's not bad.