Absolutely Fantastic

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Peter Roberts is an American, former race car driver who is now working as a driving instructor in Australia's Gold Coast where he lives with his wife and daughter. His life is about to be turned upside down when fellow American Simon Keller turns up to take a lesson. Keller asks to stop at the bank on the way back to get money to pay for the lesson… Roberts is shocked when Keller runs back while being shot at; he has robbed the bank! It turns out it isn't an ordinary bank; he has taken nine million dollars in bearer bonds that were part of a money laundering scheme. Senior local police are in the pocket of the crooks and call off the police chase so soon Roberts and Keller find themselves being shot at by mercenaries armed with automatic weapons. They manage to switch cars and get away… although in Roberts's case he is only sticking with Keller because he is being threatened. As they travel north they run into various dangers before ultimately having to confront the villains who want their bonds back.When I started watching this film I knew nothing about it but assumed it would be an action packed film full of car chases and explosions; while it does include both it is much a comedy as an action film. It starts fairly well; Keller's driving lesson was amusing and the following chase is fairly exciting. Roberts and Keller are fun characters even if the latter is a criminal he is somewhat sympathetic as the people he stole from are worse. They have a decent chemistry that develops over the course of the film… one can't expect real chemistry given the hostage/kidnapper relationship. Thomas Jane and John Cusack are solid in these roles. There are plenty of good laughs although some are rather dark… a man who tries to stop them accidentally shoots himself with very messy results! The subplot involving the corrupt police is somewhat superfluous; our protagonists don't even know corrupt cops are involved let alone meet them. Overall this might not be a classic but it is rather fun and the Australia setting makes a refreshing change from the US or Europe.

I question the ambition of this middle of the road action movie which has little in the way of actual action or surprise. Again, two often bankable but fading movie stars paired up in an effort that would even have gone unnoticed on terrestrial TV in the mid-'90s - I guess they need to work like the rest of us, but they're better than this! Thomas Jane is an ex-racer living in Australia, doing a 9-5 job that he hates and living in marriage limbo, when a client who may be a stalker turns out to be a bank robber with a higher purpose.Jane is dragged into the crime, which quickly turns into a game of cops and robbers but then suggestively goes deeper as the corrupt bank pulls out all the stops to catch them. It's a shame that anybody other than Jane and Cusack don't appear to have acted in any capacity other than for soap operas, which is as good as pantomime; and that's what it often feels like.It's a simple plot that works in the hands of a capable production company, and Drive Hard does feature some nice stunt driving, but it's rather tepid and doesn't dare to do much more than turn a few sharp corners.It's just nice to have featured a Ford Falcon and a Mustang Fastback. There are some highlights. Jane's character suffers many a humorous mishap including a brawl with an old woman, but overall I could have been thrilled once or twice. That's not too much to ask.John Cusack's appearance in the movie prompted me to forget what I was watching and to search the internet for the state of his health. He not only appears ill and barely invested, he looks like death, or more specifically George Stark in Stephen King and George Romero's The Dark Half, including the weird crud happening under the surface of his face.Overall not a great film, and a lot will pass you by as a result of boredom, but it isn't awful if you must watch it for yourself!

I have been a member of IMDb for 10 years and never written a review on here before but I needed to say something about this pile of crap. Drive Hard was available on Sky Movies Demand and I saw Cusack and Jane attached to it so I thought that sounds cool and wondered why I had never heard of it. I love Cusack since I was a kid back in the 80s and Thomas Jane was awesome in The Punisher so I had a real shock when watching the first 5 mins (yes 5 mins) and could see why I had never heard of it. This film (if you can call it a film) was one of the worst movies (along with 'Dude Where's My Car' and 'Operation Endgame') that I've ever seen. I couldn't even finish it after watching 30 minutes, as I felt my brain was turning into mush. Seriously Cusack what were you thinking??The acting was very bad, the script was not well written, the camera work was shoddy (some of the actors faces especially Jane looked so odd like they had skin conditions) and the comedy wasn't funny at all.I saw the trailer straight after switching off to see how they portrayed it and it is deceiving as they put all the action in but hardly anyone speaking because the other actors could not act at all. I watch all types of films from the classics, interesting and intelligent to the daft, silly and ridiculous and enjoy them all. I like to give movies a chance, but this was too much. If I could have given a zero I would have, but it is a 1 out of 10 for me.

Peter Roberts (Thomas Jane) is a former professional racing driver turned driving instructor. He lives with his lawyer wife and young daughter. When he goes into work, he finds himself unexpectedly teaching new student Simon Keller (John Cusack). However, Keller isn't interested in learning to drive and deliberately books a lesson with Roberts with the sole intention of using him as his getaway driver for a bank robbery that he intends to commit - due to Roberts reputation as a professional driver. Once the robbery has taken place, Keller finds himself on the run from several parties with Roberts as an accessory to the crime.Laboured and laughter free are probably the best words to describe this appalling excuse of a film; it started off badly and just never recovered. There are holes in the script right from the start - when Keller is having his supposed driving lesson and starts driving like a lunatic, yet Roberts (the instructor) is not able to do anything about it. Do driving school cars not have dual controls in Australia? Keller pulls up halfway through a driving lesson for a cup of coffee - who the hell would do that? Despite this, Roberts still isn't suspicious that something is amiss with Keller. Come on!Keller and Roberts are on the run from the police, the feds, and assassins within Rossi's organisation, but decide to make several routine stops along the way so that they can rob cars from people. What was the point in doing that? They ditched Roberts' car and swapped it for a different car after they had evaded the police so the police would have still been looking for the original car. Outside of the ridiculous script, the film also boasts some of the most pathetic car chases that I've ever seen. This film is supposed to be an action comedy...hmmm well there was some action, but I didn't see any comedy. It's very rare that I don't laugh at least once even when I watch a bad comedy, but I honestly did not laugh once throughout this sorry mess of a film. The chemistry between Cusack and Jane was awkward and as mentioned every single attempt at creating humour was a misfire.The performances across the board were pretty poor as well; Cusack, for me, tried too hard and I expect that he was trying to compensate for the shoddy material that he was given to work with. Jane doesn't fare any better and just wasn't convincing in his respective role.The thing that annoyed me the most about this film was some of the twists later in the film; for about 2/3 of the running time Roberts keeps harping on about wanting Keller to let him go and stating that he doesn't want to be his getaway driver. However, in the final 1/3 of the film Roberts willingly assists Keller and actually ended up more like an accomplice. The sole thing this film had going for it up to this point was Roberts likability, but even that disappeared out of the window. Worse still, Roberts is branded a hero at the end of the film getting sponsorship deals to re-ignite his racing career even though he clearly acted more like an accomplice than a mere kidnapped getaway driver in the later stages. So not only was the film laboured and laughter-free it also arrives at a conclusion that was completely immoral. 0 out of 10. Pathetic!