I like this movie, some of of scenes are 1st rate, what the driver does to a orange Mercedes are spectacular, very interesting choice of music here and there makes it unique, I think this movie attracted more of a following as time passed which is unusual.

If you liked either Mad Max,The Vanishing Point or Dirty Mary Crazy Larry chances are this will be right up your Avenue.There is some great driving scenes in this & I like the antagonistic Relationship between The Two Main Characters.It's hard to believe that Steve McQueen turned this Part down but Ryan O'Neal is great in this Minimal dialogue Part.Like Layer Cake more than a few years later all The Characters have nick names instead of real ones.

Already from the get-go, The Driver proves to keep its promise as a small, yet intense and fast paced thriller filled with first-class cinematography and outstanding performances that is a gratifying experience all the way through.

Ryan O'Neill is surprisingly effective as a staid macho drive with Isabelle Adjani as the damsel witness. Amazing action sequences symbolic of the chaos of the film

Was interested in this film because of Drive, but that film is way better than this. Plot makes little sense. The Driver, is meant to be a super-smart criminal, who can't be caught. Yet opening scene he is being pursed by multiple cop cars. As soon as he shakes them off, more appear. At this point you would have to think he is doomed. The more cops he runs of the road, the more attention he brings to himself. The entire city police force would have been after him. Yet somehow they can't set up a road-block. And why does the driver pay witnesses to not see him heists? Wouldn't it be better to hide somewhere, rather than have a person know who you are? Or plan the heists better, so that there isn't a million people around to see you? In Drive, Ryan Gosling's character, uses stealth and smarts to evade the police. Having a scanner is something he has, that the "smart" Driver should have - but doesn't. Very bland characters that don't develop, or have a backstory. This is just an excuse for gratuitous car chase scenes, that don't any sense, in context of the story.

My fat finger prevented me giving this movie 5 stars which is what it deserves. In a word superb. Wonderful noir and wonderful casting. Great fun. Adjani was incomparable.

I am quickly liking these Walter Hill directed thrillers from the mid 70s. Perhaps it reminds me of watching late night 온라인카지노추천 in the 1980s? In this 1978 thriller we have a getaway driver (Ryan O'Neal) who is pretty good at his job or driving away from armed robberies evading police cars that always crash in slow motion! In the other corner is a police detective (Bruce Dern) who is pretty good at his job using sometimes questionable methods. The detective is determined to catch the driver. Nobody has a real name in this film it appears. In the middle is a mysterious woman called The Player (Isabelle Adjani). Not much dialogue is shown from the driver just a series of excellent chase scenes that rival anything else at the time and feature some excellent stunt work. Hill shows the cat and mouse game between the driver and the detective and brings a good 1970s film to the screen. True it has aged somewhat since it's 1978 release (it makes me feel old saying that) but it is entirely enjoyable. The influence of this film on more recent films such as Drive (Ryan Gosling) and Baby Driver is clear to see.

The Driver is a slick, gripping, and thrilling action/thriller tinged with film noir. Even the characters are given slick names such as the main character who is referred to is either "The Driver" or "Cowboy" by the police detective trying to catch him. The Driver is a man who works as a getaway driver for criminals and is the best at the job. Every criminal wants him, but he doesn't come cheap and always scrutinizes his clients (At the beginning of the film, he chastises his clients and refuses to ever work with them again since they were late getting back to the car). He is careful at what he does, frustrating a police detective due to a lack of evidence. However, when The Driver, takes on a job, he winds up in a dangerous conspiracy that could land him in jail or kill him. The plot is fairly simply and features familiar tropes, but the direction is slick, the acting is solid, and the action sequences are thrilling and breathtaking. It still puts many car chase films to shame even with all the technical wizardry of modern Hollywood. If you love a good action film, you cannot miss The Driver, as it is easily among the best of the genre.

this underrated classic is an insanely cool movie. Drive & Baby Driver are copies of this movie

Let us talk about silence. This is one of those movies where the cool move is to walk away without as much as a shrug. Two criminals that show emotion: A vindictive thief humiliated by the driver and a vulnerable female fixer both meet bad ends. I am not a fan of Ryan O`Neal (who is?), but in this he stands as tall as laconic icons Steve McQueen (who turned it down - tired of car films and ready for some Ibsen) and Alain Delon. The French have a solid tradition pairing crime and stoicism. Check out the classic heist movie Rififi. Where feelings lead to downfall - a guy puts a ring in his own pocket to give to his girl. Cinema has always had an on/off love affair with silence. The 70`s were almost the second silent era, in a decade when American television blabbered away. And today? You may compare the original and the remake of The Mechanic. The first knows that silence is a powerful tool. The second is just grunts between the rumble. Bring on the roaring 80`s. Jack Nicholson became a set of eyebrows, Al Pacino a boombox, McQueen died and O`Neal all but vanished. Adapt or die. Rather funny that director Walter Hill ended up making 48 Hrs. with Eddie Murphy in his motormouth prime. Before we silence the talk: The Driver confirms that sitting next to Isabelle Adjani during a car chase is the best thing in the world.

Getaway driver movies are usually pretty cool, but this one was just so... 70's.

Le Samouraï meets Drive

Amusing little flick out of the 70s. Saw it suggested on a page for people who liked Drive, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. Starred the guy who starred in my least favorite Kubrick film, Barry Lyndon and the guy who played the General in The Hateful 8. I was not impressed by either actor. what saved the film were the car chases, I am always a sicker for s good one, but I'd stick with Vanishing Point or The 7 Ups before watching again. The story was so-so. It's a rainy day movie at best.

If a disaffectedly ruthless sheen can signify cinematic cool in this perpetually uncool day and age, then 1978's "The Driver," a bare bones take on the action genre, deserves a place next to deservedly godly classics like "Bullitt" and "Dirty Harry." Granted, it's more style than it is substance - making for stark contrast with the aforementioned masterworks - but "The Driver," with its dizzying car chases and its noiry exchanges, is devilish in the way it gets away with its sensuous self-regard. Because this is the kind of film that has the audacity to respond to its own artifice. The characters don't have names: they are things, carrying around labels like, ahem, The Driver, The Detective, etc., and they don't exist to do anything besides what their title entails. Conversations ring with the pulp chintziness of a tête-à-tête between a femme fatale and an anti-hero circa 1946; the performances are not so much performances as they are imitations of classic character types. Which is why "The Driver's" relative success is all the more impressive. It survives as an exercise in attitude, sometimes appearing to be, in itself, a comment on a genre that oftentimes struggles to stand above the tragedies that come along with sinking to formula. In the midst of its observation are we left with a lean, mean, and exquisitely tough thriller, intelligent in its crafting and more than a little exceptional in its delivery. It should be slight, pretentious even. But it concocts an astonishingly slick atmosphere Nicolas Winding Refn would kill to recreate, and it's hopeless for us to withstand its roguish magnetism. "The Driver" finds its titular figure in Ryan O'Neal, a defining actor of his generation whose then-waning popularity perfectly suits the world weary persona of the man he's playing. His Driver is a man we've perhaps always dreamed of one day living as - a rebel on the wrong side of the law with the good sense to never get caught. He specializes in driving getaway cars, an unconventional job that pays off both monetarily and in reputation. He's one of the best in his slim field, and is gaining notoriety on both sides of the tracks. The Driver is provided with all his jobs by The Connection (Ronee Blakley), a slinkily confident small-time crime boss, and his given his alibis by The Player (Isabelle Adjani), with whom he appears to have some sort of romantic interest (though we never really find out if such a notion is embedded in the truth). He could very well continue with his sinful career until the day he dies. But with the viciously ambitious The Detective (Bruce Dern) committed to stopping him dead in his tracks, The Driver's days of perpetuating neighborhood crime could be coming to a close. But it's clear that these said days will never come to a close - these characters, all memorably portrayed by a satisfactorily disparate ensemble, will always have a place in the movies. There will always be a man like The Driver, a man like The Detective, and there will always be women of the distinct brands of The Player and The Connection. An endless game of cat-and-house is something we can always expect in the thriller genre, particularly in ones that get their jollies through car chases and badass attitudes. So maybe "The Driver" would be more tiresome, more eye-rollingly predictable, if not for Walter Hill's coordinating of it all. Here is an auteur with a clear-eyed appreciation for film noir, for suspense, and for action. But unlike so many filmmakers who try to get away with a wispily tense ambience, Hill is an assured director and an assured storyteller, so much so that we're sure we're witnessing something original and not totally rehashed. And since "The Driver" is, essentially, a greatest hits collection of workable tropes, that's something to be proud of.

Watched in 1980 but have a faint picture - want to watch it again.

This is a film I dearly love and is exceedingly 70s cool, but despite some strong performances and some of the best car chases ever committed celluloid, the film's characters and story are rather dull and plodding much of the time. Writer/director Walter Hill wrote and directed a number of classic action films, ranging from "The Getaway" to "The Warriors" to "48hrs" to even the unsung prison boxing film "Undisputed." Of all his films, "The Driver" is probably his coolest. Ryan O'Neal plays a getaway driver for hire who doesn't carry a gun and on a job only drives. $10,000 upfront and 15% of the take. Bruce Dern plays the cop going after O'Neal and Isabelle Adjani plays the love interest. Re-watching the film now, it appears almost as a prototype for kind of films Michale Mann would later make, such as "Thief" or "Heat," slickly made films where characters operate with a single minded focus in an underworld that seem to operate within their own reality completely apart from the civilian world. It's impossible to see how this was was not an influence on Nicolas Winding Refn's "Drive" or Edgar Wright's "Baby Driver" (both MUST SEE films if you haven't already seen them). However, compared to these modern day progeny, Hill's film is more a neo-noir throwback without the dripping neon of Mann or Refn. I never noticed until this viewing that none of the characters in the film actually have names and are only called by their occupations (i.e. "The Driver"). While that's kind of fun in an academic sort of way, it doesn't really help for character development. And when the story unfolds in a rather mechanical plot driven manner, the lack of fully fleshed out characters creates a distance between the audience from what's happening on the screen. John Frankenheimer's car chase picture "Ronin" also suffered from this same issue, where the professional criminals never reveal personal details with one another, which makes sense from a story standpoint, but they then come across simply as archetypes and not full fleshed out characters. Michael Mann's "Heat" or "Thief" offer the solution to this, both featuring professional criminals with cold calculating codes, but also making them believable real life characters. However, while those complaints would mean the death knell of most films, they are minor quibbles when you have a film that features Ryan O'Neal getting to do a rare tough guy part, a gorgeous Adjani in her first Hollywood role, some rad 70s muscle cars and super cool 70s fashions, and also some of the best car chases ever seen on the big screen. Honestly, Refn made more than a few nods to "The Driver" in his film and took the best elements of "The Driver" and made it into the film this should have been, featuring strong characters, action, and story with style to spare. Overall, despite its shortcomings, "The Driver" is a modern action classic and one that should be watched by all fans of car chase films ("The French Connection" "Gone in 60 Seconds" [the 70s original, not the Nic Cage remake] "To Live and Die in LA" "Bullitt" "Ronin" "The Seven-Ups" "Vanishing Point" "Death Proof").

An excellent 70s flick..!

Director WALTER HILL's (The Warriors,48 Hours) Sophomore Feature Is A Well Thought Out Film Noir-ish Crime Caper Between A Getaway Driver Who Is A Man Of Few Words And An Eccentric Cop Determined To Take Him Down.

After that Ryan has never been again over the top! Hill's movie are just a brand of class, costumes, dialogues, bravadas (the cowboy who's never been caught), and dark lights make this noir a must for all the desperados in the world!

Walter Hill made this right after the sensational bare knuckle fight picture, Hard Times and right before his big breakthrough picture, The Warriors. The script isn't much and Ryan O'Neal isn't very good but Bruce Dern is magnetic, Ronee Blakely brings some depth and the big set pieces are outstanding. Worth seeking out.