The Driver

Author Raymond Chandler famously said, “Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man.” I thought of these words as I watched Walter Hill’s The Driver (1978) recently and thought about how it applied to its titular protagonist. The film was only Hill’s second outing as a director and yet it showed an assured touch in the choreographing of vehicular mayhem with a no frills approach to storytelling that is one of the hallmarks of his body of work.

It didn’t hurt that he learned the art and the nuts and bolts of filmmaking from the likes of Norman Jewison (The Thomas Crown Affair), Sam Peckinpah (The Getaway), and Paul Newman (The Drowning Pool). By the time, he directed his first feature film – Hard Times (1975) – he had seen and done a lot. The Driver saw Ryan O’Neal, in a surprising turn as a taciturn getaway driver, heading up a solid cast that featured the likes of Bruce Dern and Isabelle Adjani. The end result is a lean crime film populated by people that are the best at what they do, traveling down those mean streets Chandler talked about – they just happen to be on opposite sides of the law.

The film jumps right in by showing the Driver (O’Neal) plying his trade. He helps two crooks that have knocked over a casino escape the scene of the crime. He’s the epitome of cool under fire – not even breaking a sweat when the cops give chase, skillfully losing multiple pursuers through the streets of Los Angeles. At one point, he plays chicken with two oncoming cop cars! Hill does a superb job depicting this dynamic chase, not only conveying the speed and intensity of it, but also the skill and utter professionalism of the Driver.

The Driver is doggedly pursued by the Detective (Dern) who has been after him for some time and is determined to bust him. He knows what the Driver does – he just can’t catch him in the act. As he says at one point, “I respect a man that’s good at what he does…I’m very good at what I do.” Does this sound familiar? This dialogue would not sound out of place in Michael Mann’s Heat (1995). The Detective respects the Driver’s skills, which only makes him that much more determined to arrest him.

In fact, he is so driven that he bullies a crook (Joseph Walsh) to hire the Driver to help him and his buddies escape a bank after they rob it in broad daylight. It’s a risky move but the Detective feels that it’s worth it if he can catch his prey. This sets the wheels in motion for an inevitable showdown between these two opposing forces.

Ryan O’Neal delivers an incredibly controlled performance as a man of few words, preferring to let his actions speak for him. We know nothing about his past or his private life. He is his work and Hill tells us all we need to know through his actions, like how well he can evade multiple pursuers, or his non-descript attire and economy of words, thereby making him difficult to identify and arrest as he leaves very little of a footprint as it were. Hill even manages to show a slyly humorous side to the man in a scene where he “auditions” for three crooks, proceeding to trash their car in a parking garage while they’re all in it. This sequence is simultaneously amusing and impressive. The Driver is a fascinating, enigmatic character that O’Neal expertly brings to life.

Bruce Dern matches O’Neal beat for beat, being the conceited chatterbox to the latter’s quiet intensity. Whereas the Driver shows very little emotion, the Detective is a grinning braggart so sure of himself and his plan to catch his prey. Dern gives his cop a jovial spin but it’s all a façade to lull his opponents into a false sense of security. Underneath lurks the nastiness of someone that doesn’t like to lose.

Hill takes us on a tour of the L.A. underworld – abandoned factories, parking garages, casinos, and sparsely furnished cheap hotel rooms that reflect the Driver’s world. During the night scenes, Hill utilizes the shadows effectively, creating a neo-noir vibe that is almost tangible.

The director also deconstructs and strips the crime film down to its most basic elements and so the end credits feature no proper names, only identifying the characters by what they do. He provides them with no backstories, forcing us to identify with them by what they do and how they behave in the moment. In this respect, Hill anticipated what Michael Mann has been doing in films like Miami Vice (2006) and Blackhat (2015).

Producer Lawrence Gordon came up with the idea of a film about a professional driver and then Walter Hill wrote the screenplay over the summer of 1975 while waiting for his directorial debut, Hard Times, to be released. He wrote the film for Steve McQueen but the actor didn’t “want to do another car thing.” The studio wanted Charles Bronson – he had worked with Hill on Hard Times – but they had a falling out over it and so he went with Ryan O’Neal instead.

For the role of the Detective, the studio wanted Robert Mitchum but he passed on the role and Hill went with Bruce Dern, rewriting some of his character’s dialogue to accommodate the actor’s personality and to contrast O’Neal’s taciturn Driver.

When it came to principal photography, Hill shot all the dramatic scenes first and then all the chases at night, which he felt “would be very much more in the spirit of what the storytelling wanted to be.” The director had learned about car chases working as second assistant director on Bullitt (1968). He realized that what made the famous car chase so memorable was not just the stunts but “the technique of shooting from inside. You really felt it was a rollercoaster ride as well as something you were observing. I made damn sure that when I was doing The Driver I filmed an enormous amount of inside shots.”

When Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive (2011) came out a lot was made about how much it resembled The Driver (and Mann’s Thief) and it certainly owes a debt to Hill’s film but conversely it is indebted to Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samourai (1967) with its protagonist of few words that is also an elite criminal. Like Refn did with Drive, Hill makes The Driver his own by applying his specific style and worldview. For example, the crook (Rudy Ramos) that double crosses the Driver partway through the film would be the first of many nasty baddies that populate Hill’s films – amoral men without regard for life, like Luther in The Warriors (1979) and Ganz in 48 HRS. (1982). These guys cannot be civilized or contained – they must be killed because of the threat they pose to the natural order of things.

The Driver may be a criminal but he has his own moral code that he follows and he doesn’t break his rules unless forced to by the bad guy. As Chandler said, he is neither “tarnished nor afraid,” and remains an unflappable presence throughout the film, adapting to any complications that come his way, including the trap that the Detective sets for him.

The Driver received mostly negative reviews when it was first released in theaters. Roger Ebert gave it two-and-a-half out of four stars and wrote, “And then there are those chase scenes. They’re great. They fill the screen with energy, even if it’s mechanical energy that doesn’t substitute for the human kind.” In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby, “For a movie in which there are so many chases. The Movie is singularly unexciting and uninvolving, though it does have its laughs.” The Los Angeles Times’ Kevin Thomas described the film as “ultraviolent trash that wipes out Ryan O’Neal, Bruce Dern and Isabella Adjani,” and “plays like a bad imitation of a French gangster picture which in turn is a bad imitation of an American gangster picture.” Finally, the Chicago Reader’s Dave Kehr wrote, “There’s no realism, no psychology, and very little plot…There is, however, a great deal of technically sophisticated and very imaginative filmmaking.”

The Driver was not a financial success but has become an influential film, counting filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, the aforementioned Refn, and Edgar Wright among its admirers. For Hill, it began a terrific run of action-oriented films that included films like The Long Riders (1980) and Southern Comfort (1981) and continued up to and including Streets of Fire (1984). Some of them were box office hits, some were not but all of them were instilled with the filmmaker’s no-nonsense, hardboiled sensibilities and a terrific capacity for kinetic action.

SOURCES

Hewitt, Chris. “Edgar Wright and Walter Hill Discuss The Driver.” Empire. March 13, 2017.

Zero Effect

Zero Effect (1998) marked the auspicious debut of writer/director Jake Kasdan, son of famous filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill). The film was a quirky blend of detective story, comedy and romance – a contemporary spin on the classic Sherlock Holmes short story, “A Scandal in Bohemia.” It also provided, for perhaps the first time, the ideal vehicle for character actor Bill Pullman. This mix of genres resulted in a lukewarm critical reaction and failure to recoup even half of its five million dollar budget at the box office. Zero Effect disappeared onto home video where it found a second life and currently enjoys something of a cult following.

Daryl Zero (Bill Pullman) is an eccentric private investigator that deals with his clients via a proxy – his long-suffering associate Steve Arlo (Ben Stiller) who has become frustrated dealing with his employer’s odd hours and even odder habits. It doesn’t help that Arlo’s girlfriend Jess (Angela Featherstone) is putting pressure on him to settle down. The latest case that Arlo brings to Zero involves a rich businessman by the name of Gregory Stark (Ryan O’Neal) who has lost the key to a very important safety deposit box and is also being blackmailed. In keeping with his finely tuned investigative abilities, Zero already knows Stark’s backstory (“Son of a fatman,” he deadpans at one point) right from the get-go and finds the man’s keys in no time. The blackmail part takes a little longer.

When Zero meets a beautiful paramedic known as Gloria Sullivan (Kim Dickens) during the course of his investigation, he not only considers her potential suspect, but also begins to develop feelings for her, much to his surprise. The film shifts its tone from an offbeat comedy to a character-driven romance while never completely abandoning the mystery that kicked things off in the first place. It’s an unconventional romance to say the least as Zero initially pretends to be interested in Gloria only to find himself actually falling in love with her and she with him. She’s a bit of an enigma, which intrigues him and he gets deeper involved with her in order to uncover her motives.

The film grabs one’s attention right away with Elvis Costello’s “Mystery Dance” playing over the opening credits and this is rather apt as the song is about romantic and sexual inexperience, which could easily apply to Zero. He is completely clueless when it comes to love and relationships, much like the narrator of Costello’s song. Our introduction to Zero is an intriguing build-up as Arlo hypes his employer’s many impressive skills to a drinking buddy only to trash his personal habits in the next breath.

Next, Arlo enters Zero’s apartment, which is protected like a top secret fortress, complete with a keypad security system and a front door with five deadbolt locks. The camera follows Arlo around the place and one can hear guitar playing and really bad singing off in the distance. Arlo finds Zero in his bedroom and our first shot of enigmatic detective is of him singing and playing an acoustic guitar while wearing long underwear and a kimono. Apparently, he’s been awake for three days on speed and is given to eating tuna straight from the can, washing it down with a can of Tab (his drink of choice judging by his fridge, which is mostly taken up with the beverage).

Zero Effect starts off very much in the tradition of a film like Fletch (1985) with Zero adopting all kinds of disguises and identities in order to follow his client and get information from potential suspects. In a nice touch, each identity has its own driver’s license with a picture that looks a little crazier than the last. The pictures aren’t overtly wacky, but just slightly off-kilter as to be wryly funny. Zero Effect is filled with little moments like this, or an amusing scene, like the one where Arlo and Zero meet at a bank of pay phones at an airport because, according to the detective, two guys talking there is “a little fishy.”

After years of playing nice guy supporting roles in films like The Accidental Tourist (1988) and Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Bill Pullman finally got a substantial role in which to sink his teeth into and it also allowed him to demonstrate his range as an actor. He fully immerses himself in the role, playing a wildly eccentric character, but the actor knows just how to avoid veering off into goofy caricature territory by showing different sides of this man. It is all in the little choices he makes, like the way he delivers a certain line of dialogue, taking the most ordinary phrase or word and giving it just the right off-kilter spin to make it feel fresh, that makes his performance so fun to watch.

Ben Stiller’s Arlo is the Dr. Watson to Zero’s Sherlock Holmes albeit updated for a contemporary setting. While on a case, he and Zero are the best at what they do, but during their downtime they have a dysfunctional relationship and Stiller does a nice job showing how increasingly exasperated Arlo is from being basically at his employer’s beck and call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is a nice change of pace for Stiller back when he was more willing to take chances in films like Reality Bites (1994) where he played a self-absorbed jerk and Permanent Midnight (1998) where he played a spiraling drug addict, and get out of his comfort zone of playing goofballs or neurotic messes. Stiller is an ideal foil for Pullman, but is more than capable of the dramatic stuff as evident in a scene where Arlo tells Zero that he’s going to quit after their current case is over. Of course, Zero freaks out and Arlo lays it all out, telling him what’s at stake and Stiller does an excellent job of conveying the seriousness of Arlo’s decision.

Much like Pullman, Kim Dickens has rarely been given an opportunity to showcase her skills as an actress in a substantial role (a notable exception is the under-appreciate Allison Anders film, Things Behind the Sun). Beyond her obvious beauty, the actress conveys a fierce intelligence that is crucial for this role as Gloria is supposed to be an intellectual challenge for Zero. She is not an easy character to read and this intrigues both us and Zero. As the film progresses, it becomes apparent that she’s the real mystery that Zero must figure out.

Bill Pullman met Jake Kasdan on the set of Lawrence Kasdan’s film The Accidental Tourist and they became good friends. While making Wyatt Earp (1994) – also for the elder Kasdan – Jake was making a documentary about the film. He told Pullman about wanting to be a writer and that some day he’d write a screenplay for the actor. Kasdan was influenced by the short stories of Sherlock Holmes and drawn to the idea of “master detectives with highly developed minds who have some sort of manner of deficiency.” He wanted to write about “the ways that people can really be good at some things and really bad at other things.” Pullman figured that it would never happen and was surprised when, a few years later, Kasdan offered him Zero Effect.

Zero Effect received mostly mixed reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars and wrote, “The first time we see him, Zero seems like a goofy, off-the-shelf weirdo. But Pullman, from While You Were Sleeping and Independence Day, can drop the façade and let you see the complications inside.” In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “both Pullman and the slyly restrained Stiller keep their characters entertaining even Kasdan’s interest is elsewhere. For all its admirable ambitions, this loosely focused feature has the makings of a better buddy story than detective tale anyhow.” The Los Angeles Times’ Jack Mathews wrote, “Zero Effect has its rough spots. The neurotic flourishes that Kasdan uses to introduce Zero manage to be both precious and over the top at the same time … And though the dialogue is generally sharp, there are bad patches.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “C+” rating and Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote, “in a thanklessly ill-defined leading role, Pullman, that fine vanilla pudding of an actor, does the thing he does best, gamely throwing raisins of idiosyncrasy our way until something sticks. Finally, in her review for the San Francisco Chronicle, Ruthe Stein wrote, “Zero Effect is more an interesting idea for a detective movie than it is an interesting film. Kasdan is onto something, but he needs to develop it.”

I keep coming back to “Mystery Dance” and how I believe that Kasdan included it in the opening credits as a kind of foreshadowing as if he were trying to tell us that Zero Effect really isn’t about they mystery that Zero investigates, but about his development as a human being. By the end of the film, he realizes that there is more to life than work and that people can’t simply be observed analytically. One must get in there and mix it up by having an actual relationship with another person. Kasdan’s film starts off as sly comedy with Stiller playing straight man to Pullman’s eccentric oddball, but then something happens partway through when Zero gets romantically involved with Gloria and the tone shifts gears rather seamlessly into a drama of sorts. Best of all, the film allows Pullman to showcase the idiosyncratic tendencies that usually lurk underneath his good-looking façade. It took Kasdan creating a role tailor-made for the actor to show off his comedic talents as well as his dramatic chops. It’s a versatility that he rarely gets to demonstrate, which is a shame because he does it so well in Zero Effect.

SOURCES

Harris, Will. “Bill Pullman on How to Play the President and Being the Guy Who Doesn’t Get the Girl” A.V. Club. January 10, 2013

King, Susan. “Son of Hollywood.” Los Angeles Times. January 29, 1998.

For further reading, check out Sean Gill's fantastic take at his blog, and Chronlogical Snobbery's extensive 10th anniversay tribute.