Drive Hard (2014) Review

“Drive Hard” Japanese Theatrical Poster

AKA: Hard Drive
Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith
Cast: John Cusack, Thomas Jane, Zoe Ventoura, Christopher Morris, Yesse Spence, Damien Garvey
Running Time: 96 min.

By Paul Bramhall

The name Brian Trenchard-Smith should be familiar to anyone who’s a fan of Hong Kong movies, as the British born director was the man behind the 1975 Jimmy Wang Yu vehicle The Man from Hong Kong. A resident of Australia since his late teens, in the 70’s and 80’s Trenchard-Smith directed a string of low budget cult classics in the land down under. From the early Nicole Kidman flick BMX Bandits, to schlocky horror like Dead End Drive-In, to martial arts actioners Strike of the Panther and its sequel – it’s fair to say he was a pioneer in the field of Ozploitation. In the 2008 documentary Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!, Quentin Tarantino even goes so far as to say Trenchard-Smith is one of his favorite directors, which is high praise indeed.

Since then his output has maintained its low budget charm, but has arguably been mostly forgettable. While the 90’s saw him take on the likes of Leprechaun 3 and Leprechaun 4: In Space, the turn of the millennium has seen him working almost exclusively in the DTV field. In many ways his most recent efforts hark back to the days when Australian filmmakers would invite Hollywood stars down under, knowing their names would help sell the movie, such as the Jamie Lee Curtis starring Road Games from 1981. However while that movie was a suspenseful Hitchcock-esque thriller, the likes of the Cuba Gooding Jr. flick Absolute Deception is hardly held in quite the same high regard.

Made a year after Absolute Deception, Drive Hard sees Trenchard-Smith keep the same filming location of the Gold Coast in Australia (which is also were the Jackie Chan movie First Strike was filmed), and exchanges Gooding Jr. for the double whammy of John Cusack and Thomas Jane. Like Gooding Jr., the offers haven’t exactly being pouring in for either star, with Cusack mostly relegated to starring in direct to video action movies like The Prince, made the same year, and Jane, the one time Punisher, limited to mostly supporting roles. Drive Hard is pitched as a getaway chase movie, and with Cusack’s vaping bank robber taking Jane’s former race car driver cum driving instructor hostage, the simple plot and small budget seem perfectly tailored to Trenchard-Smith’s method of filmmaking.

Unfortunately, the small budget becomes brazenly apparent from almost the word go. Cusack’s bank robbery is painfully dull, and consists of them pulling up outside a building, which then cuts to a close-up shot of a safe that anyone can buy in your nearest hardware store. Cue generic alarm sound effect, and what appears to be stock footage from a corporate training video of peoples legs briskly walking towards camera, and the heist is complete! Stock footage also shows up in other places, with most of the Gold Coast shots clearly lifted from a local tourism video. In terms of production values, things don’t get any better, such as when proceedings move to a police station, you know it’s the captains office because his name appears to have been printed on a piece of A3 paper and stuck to the door.

Throw in visible bullet hole stickers stuck onto car windows, stunt equipment used to flip a car left in clear sight, a car being right hand drive in one scene and left hand drive in the next, and cars used in stunts being completely different models than what they’re supposed to be, it gives some idea of the level of detail paid to the filming process. Understandably, as an exciting chase movie, Drive Hard fails miserably. On top of the technical blunders, none of the actual chasing is particularly fast, apart from the aforementioned flip there’s not a single car crash in sight, and the sense of danger is non-existent.

There is a saving grace though, and it comes in the form of the chemistry shared between Cusack and Jane. The script gets off to a rocky start, which was penned by Trenchard-Smith himself and Brigitte Jean Allen, subjecting us to not one but two unfunny seatbelt jokes within the first 30 minutes. However it soon hits its stride, with the relationship between kidnapper and kidnappee hitting some worthy comedic notes. In one particular meta-scene, Cusack insists that Jane calls the major crimes squad, and tells them he’s being forced to be a getaway driver for the bank robbery. After two unconvincing attempts to explain the situation, Cusack grabs the phone off him and yells, “You suck as an actor!” It may be a cheap laugh, but it works.

The movie is also filled out by a host of entertaining characters that the pair meet along the way, all played by local Australian talent. From a foul mouthed psychotic grandma, to a shotgun wielding gas station manager, to a rough and ready biker gang, all have a go at capturing the fugitives with amusing results. It’s during these scenes that the movie works best, as it almost becomes a fish out of water story, with the pair of Americans dealing with the hazards of the distinctly Australian locals. The colorful language of the various characters is definitely not for the easily offended, and harkens back to an era of Australian cinema that was itself very much rough and ready, producing similarly low budget chase movies such as Mad Max and alike.

Whenever the attention turns back to the main plot though, the tone becomes uninteresting and dull. Cusack’s thief has a generic but decent enough back story as to how he got to the situation he’s in today, but as there obviously wasn’t enough budget to film it as a flashback scene, he simply tells it to Jane via dialogue while sitting in the passenger seat. Film is a visual medium, and it’s this type of scene that only serves to draw attention to its lack of budget. It’s a recurring issue throughout the movie, in that whenever the script wants to expand the scope of the story, it falters due to not being able to stray too far away from Cusack and Jane driving around in their getaway car.

There’s also the issue of a completely throwaway side story concerning a couple of corrupt cops, played by Damien Garvey and Andrew Buchanan, who were assigned to the theft case, but get thrown off it when a special unit steps in. The agents from the special unit are played by Zoe Ventoura and Jason Wilder, however not only do any of the four characters never get anywhere close to capturing Cusack and Jane, they also exit the movie all together in a bizarre scene that comes out of nowhere. It almost seems like they were originally planned to be a major part of the plot, but somewhere along the way it was decided that the finale wouldn’t involve them at all, so the filmmakers had to somehow find a way to write them out of the picture before it gets to the climax.

Basically their roles in the movie serve nothing more than to pad out the short 90 minute run time, which is ultimately what Drive Hard is to the careers of Cusack and Jane, a production to pad out their filmographies until something better comes along. Trenchard-Smith might have blown it all sky high in the past, but at the moment, Drive Hard marks an unfortunate low.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 6/10