This film isn't spoken about much but I've always had a very high regard for it. I'm glad to find someone else who enjoys it do such a thorough analysis of it. Looking at your channel I can see you've covered a lot of great films. You've got yourself a new subscriber.
I'm still trying to understand why you don't have a million subscribers. Just discovered your work searching for an analysis on Hill's "The Driver" and I'm amazed with your great work. You surely love movies, Aaron! Thank you for the videos.
Such an underrated/ overlooked classic in my opinion. I’m 29 so I’m trying to find these little gems from the 70s specifically, so when I came across this one on Letterboxd I decided to give it a shot. Instantly fell in love with the film. I want to say Nicolas Winding Refn was trying to pay homage to this one with Drive. I just can’t see how he wasn’t inspired by it. Edit: Love your channel and everything you do for us film nerds and aspiring artists. Thank you.
No steady job.. no girlfriend..you live real cheap..maybe im your friend..present..i found it on a floorboard of a car a cowboy boosted..i dont have any friends...❤ this movie i never get tired of it .plus DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY..both my favorites..peace.
If it was only style over substance I wouldn't think about it often as I do. I always wanted to know what came between Driver and Player after the end. And to Bruce Dern's character.
Better get new plates if your planning on taking it on the road people might be looking for ya .......you already have a driver he don't have the balls for driving no more ....👍 You wanna throw it go on it il cost you 2 years you know what I'm gonna do is catch the cowboy that's never been caught ..... Cowboy desperado...... Some quotes from movie pretty cool huh 🤩😀.
Never got the feeling that The Driver and The Player knew each other before the casino job. If this were the case, The Detective would be on to both of them.
My fav scene is the end part where one of the guy's takes the lady's bag and say's to the driver of the Trans am alright we got trouble....go go great car chase no cgi just car chase fun 😀😊👍
cowboy driver listens cowboy radio in his lonely room :) and his crazy.İ think this film grieves over wild west.And in the end as always in west; sheriff cannot taking anyone , ugly guys dies.Lack of characters developments is making film more realistic.İ agree with you about style and substance issue.
The idea behind the detective telling the driver that he's much better at the game is to goad the driver into doing the bank job. The driver initially wasn't willing to work with the "second raters" that the detective had blackmailed into working for him. Maybe the detective did feel superior at their respective jobs, but that wasn't the point. It wasn't a character reveal moment so much as a plot advancement.
Great analysis. I think the influence of Jean-Pierre Melville, particularly his Le Samourai with Alain Delon, is writ large over parts of this....particularly in O'Neal's performance....which is the best he ever gave in my opinion. A cynical person would say Hill just wrote and directed him as a "man of few words" because O'Neal doesn't have a ton of range as an actor...but it fits this character so well and something about O'Neal actually enhances it I think....there's something quietly menacing about the dude that contrasts with his "pretty boy" persona of the time....like the placid demeanor hides some simmering violence...but it's a violence he controls with discipline...you can see it when he's slapping around the younger criminal and admonishing him to "go home" (might help that in real life O'Neal was once a boxer...and is a volatile person to say the least in his actual life). The "Cowboy" nickname is defnitely more than a throwaway line as well....I think Hill once said basically that all his films are westerns regardless of setting. Another allusion to that is the only time the driver uses a firearm in the film, it's a Colt Single Action Army (or a replica/reproduction of one), which was the classic sidearm of American western movies....but would have been a pretty odd, impractical firearm for a criminal in the late 1970s. It's definitely that gun for a reason....every other character has more era appropriate gun designs. I've always thought this film and Michael Mann's Thief had to be the primarly influences for Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive.
Thanks for sharing these really thoughtful comments. Love the way you tie together this with Melville! Btw, there's a new book out on Hill that I can't wait to get my hands on!
@@AaronHunter I'll be checking that out myself! I've always thought Hill was a bit underrated as a director. Sure, he's had some misfires....and he does tread a lot of the same themes as a director, but he's had some excellent stuff along the way: Hard Times, Southern Comfort, The Warriors, The Long Riders, The Driver, 48 Hrs, etc. I also really like a film he wrote but didn't direct: HIckey & Boggs from 1972 with Robert Culp and Bill Cosby, which Culp directed himself. Didn't do too well when initially released....I think probably the moviegoing public didn't expect such a downbeat, violent movie from the former stars of "I Spy"...but it's gained something of a cult following over the years.
Am I missing something about the end? The detective found the money and shoots the exchange-man. So of course he’s not going to get the exchange money.
@Aaronhunter #Aaronhunter So I ended up watching Le Samourai, and 1978's The Driver after having watched 2011's Drive and found it to be a really good, underrated film (despite its cult following). Le samourai and The driver were both fantastic in their own right, but after finally having watched The Driver just last night, I'm left with one (what I feel is) really important question- see, after watching most movies (especially if I enjoy them) I like coming online and watching "reviews of" or "explained" videos made by people (I hope) are just a bit more intelligent, philosophical, and intellectual than I am to see what view points other people have of the films. Even though The driver, is one of these three movies that kind of kick around the same ideas and plot points, I couldn't help but feel a bit confused at the end of the film when "The Cowboy" goes to get his parcel out of the locker at the train station and is then met by the detectives and cops that had been chasing him, all for it to culminate in them letting him walk away... Now, I'm not an expert of laws, and I know a lot of movies ask us to suspend our disbelief to varying degrees, but I feel like The Driver was pretty well grounded in reality. Why did the cops let him go? Despite the fact that the briefcase was empty, and despite the fact that The Cowboy literally HANDED OVER the briefcase TO the cops, the detective who set the whole shindig up KNEW The Cowboy had been the getaway driver... so again, when The Cowboy showed up to get the briefcase, despite the fact that it was empty, despite the fact that he handed it over to law enforcement, why was he not arrested? I apologize for coming to you with this question- maybe you have an answer for me, maybe you don't. There aren't many reviews on CZcams about this flick and even less are as in-depth as your own review. There isn't a SINGLE video that explains any thing about this movie- you know, just something to go beat by beat and cover any plot holes or questions people may have- like my own. It seems you enjoy this film and don't seem to mind talking about it, so I hope i'm not bugging you with any mundane details or questions here, but truthfully I don't know anywhere else to go to ask anyone about this. Any thoughts you can share or light you can shed on this would be really appreciated! Thanks Aaron!- Trent
This film isn't spoken about much but I've always had a very high regard for it. I'm glad to find someone else who enjoys it do such a thorough analysis of it. Looking at your channel I can see you've covered a lot of great films. You've got yourself a new subscriber.
Thanks - hope you find some other vids you like here!
dirty mary...crazy larry..tooooo.
I'm still trying to understand why you don't have a million subscribers. Just discovered your work searching for an analysis on Hill's "The Driver" and I'm amazed with your great work. You surely love movies, Aaron! Thank you for the videos.
Ha ha, thanks! I'll keep plugging away, if more people stumble upon the channel and like it, that would be great!
Such an underrated/ overlooked classic in my opinion. I’m 29 so I’m trying to find these little gems from the 70s specifically, so when I came across this one on Letterboxd I decided to give it a shot. Instantly fell in love with the film. I want to say Nicolas Winding Refn was trying to pay homage to this one with Drive. I just can’t see how he wasn’t inspired by it.
Edit: Love your channel and everything you do for us film nerds and aspiring artists. Thank you.
Thanks for the nice comment, much appreciated! And I definitely agree about this film's influence on NWR.
No steady job.. no girlfriend..you live real cheap..maybe im your friend..present..i found it on a floorboard of a car a cowboy boosted..i dont have any friends...❤ this movie i never get tired of it .plus DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY..both my favorites..peace.
Ryan's stoic sigma male personality added another take.
If it was only style over substance I wouldn't think about it often as I do. I always wanted to know what came between Driver and Player after the end. And to Bruce Dern's character.
Better get new plates if your planning on taking it on the road people might be looking for ya .......you already have a driver he don't have the balls for driving no more ....👍 You wanna throw it go on it il cost you 2 years you know what I'm gonna do is catch the cowboy that's never been caught ..... Cowboy desperado...... Some quotes from movie pretty cool huh 🤩😀.
Thanks for the video Aaron
Never got the feeling that The Driver and The Player knew each other before the casino job. If this were the case, The Detective would be on to both of them.
My fav scene is the end part where one of the guy's takes the lady's bag and say's to the driver of the Trans am alright we got trouble....go go great car chase no cgi just car chase fun 😀😊👍
Aaron Hunter what genre is this movie "The Driver"? An action film with drama or a crime drama with some action scenes?
The latter (in my view)
cowboy driver listens cowboy radio in his lonely room :) and his crazy.İ think this film grieves over wild west.And in the end as always in west; sheriff cannot taking anyone , ugly guys dies.Lack of characters developments is making film more realistic.İ agree with you about style and substance issue.
Awesome breakdown.
Thanks!
@@AaronHunter your welcome !
great video! greetings from argentina
Great film reminds me of drive
Reminds me of the game Driver
This film is so good that I would compare it to John Siegel’s movie the lineup, and Charley Varrick, another crime movie
The idea behind the detective telling the driver that he's much better at the game is to goad the driver into doing the bank job. The driver initially wasn't willing to work with the "second raters" that the detective had blackmailed into working for him. Maybe the detective did feel superior at their respective jobs, but that wasn't the point. It wasn't a character reveal moment so much as a plot advancement.
Great analysis. I think the influence of Jean-Pierre Melville, particularly his Le Samourai with Alain Delon, is writ large over parts of this....particularly in O'Neal's performance....which is the best he ever gave in my opinion. A cynical person would say Hill just wrote and directed him as a "man of few words" because O'Neal doesn't have a ton of range as an actor...but it fits this character so well and something about O'Neal actually enhances it I think....there's something quietly menacing about the dude that contrasts with his "pretty boy" persona of the time....like the placid demeanor hides some simmering violence...but it's a violence he controls with discipline...you can see it when he's slapping around the younger criminal and admonishing him to "go home" (might help that in real life O'Neal was once a boxer...and is a volatile person to say the least in his actual life). The "Cowboy" nickname is defnitely more than a throwaway line as well....I think Hill once said basically that all his films are westerns regardless of setting. Another allusion to that is the only time the driver uses a firearm in the film, it's a Colt Single Action Army (or a replica/reproduction of one), which was the classic sidearm of American western movies....but would have been a pretty odd, impractical firearm for a criminal in the late 1970s. It's definitely that gun for a reason....every other character has more era appropriate gun designs. I've always thought this film and Michael Mann's Thief had to be the primarly influences for Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive.
Thanks for sharing these really thoughtful comments. Love the way you tie together this with Melville! Btw, there's a new book out on Hill that I can't wait to get my hands on!
@@AaronHunter I'll be checking that out myself! I've always thought Hill was a bit underrated as a director. Sure, he's had some misfires....and he does tread a lot of the same themes as a director, but he's had some excellent stuff along the way: Hard Times, Southern Comfort, The Warriors, The Long Riders, The Driver, 48 Hrs, etc. I also really like a film he wrote but didn't direct: HIckey & Boggs from 1972 with Robert Culp and Bill Cosby, which Culp directed himself. Didn't do too well when initially released....I think probably the moviegoing public didn't expect such a downbeat, violent movie from the former stars of "I Spy"...but it's gained something of a cult following over the years.
Am I missing something about the end? The detective found the money and shoots the exchange-man. So of course he’s not going to get the exchange money.
What does "scuzzy" mean? (great review BTW)
Le Samourai.
Cowboy desperado.
@Aaronhunter
#Aaronhunter
So I ended up watching Le Samourai, and 1978's The Driver after having watched 2011's Drive and found it to be a really good, underrated film (despite its cult following).
Le samourai and The driver were both fantastic in their own right, but after finally having watched The Driver just last night, I'm left with one (what I feel is) really important question- see, after watching most movies (especially if I enjoy them) I like coming online and watching "reviews of" or "explained" videos made by people (I hope) are just a bit more intelligent, philosophical, and intellectual than I am to see what view points other people have of the films.
Even though The driver, is one of these three movies that kind of kick around the same ideas and plot points, I couldn't help but feel a bit confused at the end of the film when "The Cowboy" goes to get his parcel out of the locker at the train station and is then met by the detectives and cops that had been chasing him, all for it to culminate in them letting him walk away...
Now, I'm not an expert of laws, and I know a lot of movies ask us to suspend our disbelief to varying degrees, but I feel like The Driver was pretty well grounded in reality.
Why did the cops let him go? Despite the fact that the briefcase was empty, and despite the fact that The Cowboy literally HANDED OVER the briefcase TO the cops, the detective who set the whole shindig up KNEW The Cowboy had been the getaway driver... so again, when The Cowboy showed up to get the briefcase, despite the fact that it was empty, despite the fact that he handed it over to law enforcement, why was he not arrested?
I apologize for coming to you with this question- maybe you have an answer for me, maybe you don't. There aren't many reviews on CZcams about this flick and even less are as in-depth as your own review. There isn't a SINGLE video that explains any thing about this movie- you know, just something to go beat by beat and cover any plot holes or questions people may have- like my own.
It seems you enjoy this film and don't seem to mind talking about it, so I hope i'm not bugging you with any mundane details or questions here, but truthfully I don't know anywhere else to go to ask anyone about this.
Any thoughts you can share or light you can shed on this would be really appreciated! Thanks Aaron!- Trent
This film is so good that I would compare it to John Siegel’s movie the lineup, and Charley Varrick, another crime movie