Leaden Fuel

By R.S.

THE DRIVER

Directed and Written by Walter Hill

The driver (Ryan O'Neal) is the man behind the wheel of the getaway car, waiting for the robbers to come pelting out of the bank with their loot. The cop (Bruce Bern) has a never-explained obsession with putting this particular wheelman behind bars. This leads to the burning of much tire rubber, the crunching of much metal, but not much psychological or sociological edification. And not much emotional involvement in the proceedings, since neither man is ever shown to be anything but a grim-faced psychopath, hiding under the fashionable guise of being a "professional."

A few years ago, Writer-Director Hill was responsible for a nice, tight-mouthed action film called Hard Times, which featured Charles Bronson as a bare-knuckle fighter scrapping to stay alive in Depression America. It gave a good account of a man trapped in brutality by bitter circumstances, and Hill may well have had some thing equally deterministic in mind when he set out. to make this study of how cop and criminal mentalities begin to merge when both have too long inhabited the demimonde. But in the earlier movie, the Depression offered some explanation for Branson's hardness. Here we haven't the faintest idea what motivates these two men in modern-day America. Given O'Neal's skill as a driver, the thought keeps occurring that he could be doing just as well, with a lot less hassle, on the stock-car circuit. And Dern's cynicism easily qualifies him for a job behind a big desk at an entertainment conglomerate.

Other random thoughts occur. For example, how come in movies like this a couple of crooks can indulge in a top-speed car chase through downtown Los Ange les for 20 minutes without attracting a single squad car, when you or I get hauled in just for failing to make a left-turn signal? How come Hill insists on making the leading lady (Isabelle Adjani) so enigmatic, so much the dark lady of a thou sand bad screenplays, that the entire audience giggles every time she talks without moving her lips? And, finally, how come the Department of Energy didn't shut this picture down? It must have cost Kuwait's entire monthly output to fuel this non sense, with a resultant entertainment value somewhat beneath James Schlesinger's latest speech.

--R.S.

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