Man on Film: Drive Angry [3D]

Jesus, it's been a long damn time since I actually saw this. I went on opening weekend, keeping my streak of consecutive Nicolas Cage movies seen in the theater alive at nine--a feat that may be my proudest accomplishment.

While my accomplishment is something to behold, Drive Angry was unfortunately disappointing. Don't get me wrong, this was markedly better than Season of the Witch, but it failed to go as far as I had hoped it would. It played things just a little too safely, shackling Cage with a script that lack enough imagination and a foil not up to the challenge of giving an opposing 110% in the form of Billy Burke.

With Cage playing it up as only he can, he is complimented quite nicely by William Fichtner, playing The Accountant, whose mission is to bring Milton (Cage's protagonist) back to Hell, from where he had broken out to save his daughter. Fichtner plays it pitch-perfect, calm in destruction, dry in wit.

Adding to the film is eye-candy in the form of the insanely hot Amber Heard and the much less clothed Charlotte Ross. Ross does not look her age to be sure, and Heard, while not prancing about in various stages of undress as she did in The Informers, sure looks good. I can't decide whether her choice of accent works or not, as it's insanely thick and possibly bad but over-the-top is the name of the game here. Any shoddy accent work can probably be excused given the circumstances.

Where the film lives and dies is in its action sequences, and unfortunately this is where it comes up short. While promise is shown in the trailer, the action scenes simply lack the requisite verve to make the film what it should be: a trashy explosion-fest with crazy deaths and balls-to-the-wall energy.