Linkshoch Wonderful Movie

AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Leofwine_draca I've seen plenty of Stephen King adaptations in my time, but BIG DRIVER has to be one of the very worst. It's based on a novella by the author and had a screenplay written by Richard Christian Matheson, no less, but that doesn't make it any good; it turns out that this was a television movie, which may go some way in explaining the horrible execution.You know those films which attempt to be serious but feel false and half-hearted instead? That's the case here. BIG DRIVER skirts the usual TV movie problems by offering explicit adult material, but the storyline is very unsatisfying and it turns out to be a King version of a simple 'rape revenge' storyline a la THE BRAVE ONE.Maria Bello has never been one of the most interesting actresses and things are no different here. There are the usual kooky Stephen King elements added to the plot - and of course, the main character just HAS to be a successful author - but it's all so insipid, so stupid, that I could barely watch it. A far cry from the glory days of SALEM'S LOT and CARRIE, this one.

jtindahouse If you're at all familiar with the work of Stephen King then you wouldn't even need to be told this was an adaption of one of one of his short stories to know it. It has his signatures written all over it from the talking GPS, the elderly character from one of our heroines book who is an extension of herself, the dark humour - it's all there. I'm told this sticks very faithfully to the book and I've always felt adaptations of King's work are at their best when they do this.It's very similar to Jodie Foster's 2007 film 'The Brave One'. A woman taking revenge for a heinous crime committed against her. These days the revenge genre, when the lead character is a man, has become a little stale so filmmakers are having to think up creative ways to keep it interesting with unique killing styles and traveling half way across the globe to find their prey. It seems the female lead character is still fresh enough though that the revenge can be enacted in a pretty straight up and down way.For a TV movie the quality is certainly all there. The acting is very decent and the story never drags nor feels rushed. Maria Bello impressed me in the lead role. She was gritty and believable and never makes you turn against her which is very important in this type of film. It never really does anything original enough to be considered great which is the only thing holding it back. But overall a good watch.

Alice C I recorded this movie not knowing if it was a new series or movie but seeing the commercials and casting it looked interesting. It is a Lifetime TV movie and not a very good one.Maria Bello plays a smug crime writer who attends an event upstate where she is the guest speaker. Her character isn't very likable and even though she is a CRIME writer she takes the suggestion from the creepy lady that hired her (Ann Dowd) to take a scenic route home late in the afternoon through unknown country roads. Creepy lady even goes so far as to program the directions into her Nuvi. Any sane person, let alone a crime writer with an imagination, would have changed the directions back to the known freeway as they were leaving the parking lot. But Bello takes her route in the late afternoon and soon runs over some boards with nails that flatten her Prius tire and leave her stranded conveniently at an eerily deserted empty building. Along comes Big Driver - a 6'4" huge menacing man she stops and jokes around with to entice him to change her tire. As soon as he starts looking at the tire it suddenly occurs to her how alone she is with this big man and sure enough he attacks and spends the next 15-20 minutes raping her multiple times and dragging her into a tunnel to leave her for dead with his other victims. She manages to get out of the tunnel, get her stuff and wonder up the road to a bar/convenience store (uh, why didn't she go there originally?!). She then gets a limo driver to pick her up and decides not to report the incident or bodies to the police. No one that sees her in tatters bleeding bothers to call the police either.Basically through her own head voices and her Prius Nuvi that talks to her she determines this was a planned set-up by the creepy woman that hired her and confirms this by researching her family on the Internet (should have been microfiche!) and finding out Big Driver is her son. She then goes on a vengeance and tracks mother and brothers one by one and shoots them to death.There are no twists or shocks in this movie (none that you can't see a mile away) but plenty of things make zero sense. Her Prius she left at the deserted building ends up fixed back at the bar (along with her purse, keys and driver's license) managed by Joan Jett and though she was just brutally raped she has no problem taking a cab alone to collect her things (okay she has a hand gun but seriously). She annoyingly spends time talking to her fictional characters and Nuvi which gives her far better advice than anything she can come up with.Really a stupid story and waste of talent. Since Bello's character is as unlikeable as any other in the story I really didn't care that she had been rapped and almost murdered. It was a sloppy silly script that makes zero sense to anyone with a lick of common sense. Even the final scene was totally cliché and ridiculous with her gun jamming after shooting Big Driver and him coming after her in slow motion. I'd rather spend two hours at the DMV than see this train wreck again.

hawktwo This has the creepy overtones of a Stephen King story and the movie does a very good job of delivering on the story.On the surface we see a successful author of lightweight mysteries, visiting her fans, and enjoying their adulation. Unbeknownst to the rest of the world, she has a childhood trauma that has given her some unique coping abilities that she has used to be successful.When trauma hits once again, she copes because she has a genius ability to compartmentalize everything.At times, I wondered if this was going to be a rehash of Misery or perhaps another take on The Burning Bed.The movie successfully mixes the seriousness of a near death with lighthearted satire.