Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
The Driver specializes in driving getaway cars for robberies. His exceptional talent has prevented him from being caught yet. After another successful flight from the police a self-assured detective makes it his primary goal to catch the Driver. He promises pardons to a gang if they help to convict him in a set-up robbery. The Driver seeks help from The Player to mislead the detective.
Walter Hill's neo-noir is celebrated primarily for its strikingly minimalist aesthetic and its legendary car chase sequences, which are among the best committed to film. The cinematography by Philip Lathrop is genuinely exceptional — cool, nocturnal Los Angeles rendered with near-abstract elegance. The plot is deliberately stripped of psychology and backstory to the point of near-abstraction, which is stylistically intentional but leaves the narrative feeling thin and underdeveloped for some viewers. The acting reflects the same minimalist philosophy — Ryan O'Neal, Bruce Dern, and Isabelle Adjani deliver intentionally flat, archetypal performances rather than nuanced characterizations, which serves the film's style but limits emotional engagement. Novelty is solid: the extreme minimalism of character and dialogue was distinctive for its era and clearly influenced later films like Drive, though it wasn't entirely unprecedented in the noir tradition. The ending is competent and thematically consistent but not especially resonant or surprising.