Limacher Low Down: Drive Angry 3D is a pull no punches, thrill ride that apparently was SHOT in 3D! The film starts off full throttle and though there were some down parts in the movie, for the most part it delivers quite the bang for the buck. It’s easy to enjoy this movie, but at the same time it’s easy to sit back and critique the shit out of it as well. The characters each develop in their own unique way, and apart from the fact that Nic Cage delivered a line that was his attempt at being serious, everyone in the audience laughed their asses off. I went in expecting the so bad its good aspect of B Movies, and I left thinking it was so bad it was decent.
Drive Angry starts off with a man named Milton (Nic Cage) on a mission to save his kidnapped granddaughter from the clutches of Satanic Cult Leader, Jonah King (Billy Burke). Milton takes no prisoners on his search and along his way meets the hottest bad-ass chick since Foxy Brown, Piper (Amber Heard). Piper is the type of girl where if you fuck with her she’ll rip your balls off with the flick of her wrist. We see how much ass she can kick when she finds her recent fiancée fucking a neighbor girl. Milton comes to save the day and quickly Piper and Milton are joined on the journey to seek retribution on Jonah King.
On the road someone is hunting down Milton as he hunts down Jonah; his name is simply the Accountant (William Fichtner) who has a cool, calm, don’t fuck with me and you’ll live attitude. (On a side note here, was it an inside joke that Cage actually works with an Accountant at SOME POINT in his life?) On the road Milton seems to be well known, and thought to be dead, but alas there he is. Milton doesn’t seem to look for trouble, but it seems that no matter where he goes trouble seems to find him. Milton believes that he’s on the lookout for Jonah, but Jonah is also searching for him as well. Multiple gun fights between the cult members and Milton keep the attention of the viewer and keep the audience clamoring for more. The Accountant is also seemingly recruiting people to help his effort of stopping Milton in a unique way as well. This is around the point where the movie tends to drag a bit. The action could’ve kept going full throttle, but apparently the need to build the plot line was more important than keeping the audience entertained.
Milton hits a few bumps along his way, but keeps getting up and continuing his goal of retrieving his granddaughter and stopping Jonah King from achieving his goal. Along the way Milton has pissed off every law enforcement agency in his travels and now has to deal with them as well. After a few miles of driving angry Milton needs a new ride to continue his search, and decides to visit his old running buddy Webster (David Morse). Webster explains the back story of how he and Milton know each other, and just who Milton is as well. Webster is serious and straight to the point and Morse in this role brings some drama to the project; this is where Cage tries to do the same thing and gets a laugh from the audience! This is all set up for a scene that would’ve been great involving a shit load of law enforcement and a surprise appearance from the Accountant; unfortunately some of the worse CGI I can recently remember just pissed me off and instead of exciting me, it left me groaning.
We come to the meat and potatoes part of the movie where everything comes to fruition and we find out who the better man is. Some great driving and explosions really pick the action back up and pulled me back into my enjoyment of the movie. I really wanted to enjoy this movie more than I did, but unfortunately the negatives kept adding up for me and really let me down in a way. I knew what to expect when I went into the theater to watch this, but in the end I thought Nic Cage did a better job of acting in Ghost Rider (yeah that epic piece of shit) than he did in this. I say if you’re into ass kicking, bad acting, escape from reality at the movies then go ahead and throw down the extra couple bucks for the 3D glasses and see how it differs from post production 3D.
