Director: David Koepp
Genre: Action, Thriller
Rating: B+
“I like to ride. Fixed gear. No
brakes. Can't stop. Don't want to, either.”
I was a bit surprised by just how much I enjoyed this movie. Going into it, I figured that it would be
good but I was really surprised by just how much it captured me. Premium
Rush isn’t really your typical action flick, but it does have elements of
such, along with elements of drama, romance, and humour. What really captured me, however, was the
paratext (for lack of a better word) of the film; the model of New York that
served as a map throughout the film, the regular time updates, the text
messages, and the way it goes back to tell bits of the story that we haven’t
yet been told.
Wilee (Gordon-Levitt) is a New York City bike messenger who takes
great pride in being such. He is a
rather reckless rider, although he considers the risks that he takes in his
biking to actually be protecting him – he has fixed gears and no brakes on his
bike, can’t coast, and doesn’t stop for lights – can’t stop for lights. He has a girlfriend, Vanessa (Ramirez), who
he’s currently fighting with, a rival, Manny (Wolé Parks) who he’s in
competition with, and after picking up a package to deliver to Chinatown he has
an angry, violent man, Bobby Monday (Shannon), to run – er, bike – from. The movie runs roughly in real time, covering
the span of about two hours (from just before Wilee picks up the package to
when he drops it off), with flashbacks utilized to explain the backstory of the
different characters.
One of the things that I really liked about this movie – and I realize
that it’s a bit lame – was the way they did the map of New York. Movies like this really depend on the space
in which they occur, and often they assume that the viewer has some sort of
working knowledge of the area. Premium Rush doesn’t do so; it realizes
that despite the rather large population of New York the majority of viewers
will probably not be from the state let alone the city and thus provides a map
rather frequently – merging the idea of a phone GPS system with a miniature
model of the city. I loved this map
simply because it put the movie in a real place for me.
That’s not all that I loved though.
I really liked the way they nicely mixed drama and humour. There wasn’t anything about it that was
really “this is a funny moment, laugh now” but there were still more than a few
moments that brought a smile to my face, often despite the humour occurring in
a rather unconventional way. There were
more than a few reoccurring jokes and even characters that really shouldn’t
typically have humour lines got some – I particularly loved the way that
Michael Shannon laughed in this film, although I’m not sure if that’s his
normal laugh or not. I really liked the
cast too, and the fact that Gordon-Levitt and Shannon aside they weren’t actors
who are really well known. I like
watching movies and TV shows with rather unknown actors because it gives you a
chance to fall in love with the character because of their own characteristics
and not simply because they’re played by someone that you already know and
love.
My favourite part, however, was probably the ending. I’m not going to go into too much detail,
because I don’t want to spoil, but I love how things were resolved – or not
resolved. Some things are resolved while
other things are left hanging and in the end I was left with a sense that the
story continued after the credits rolled, but without leaving me hanging. There were a lot of issues that came up in
the film and were more secondary to the plot that made me cringe in a way –
stuff that made me go “I’ve seen movies before, I know how this is going to end.” I was pleasantly surprised in that a lot of
these actually didn’t end up how I expected them to and some of them didn’t
even really get resolved. It was a lot
like life in that: not all of your problems can be solved in a two hour period,
or even one day, or even ever. Sometimes
things are left unresolved or hanging, and Premium
Rush acknowledges that while still leaving you with a feeling of closure.
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