Premium Rush
Premium Rush is a movie that seemed intriguing from the first time I saw a preview. Joseph Gordon-Levitt has done such a fantastic job in various supporting roles and I was quite interested in seeing how he could do as a lead. The film is directed by David Koepp who is one of the most prolific screenwriters of all time having written hits such as Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man, War of the Worlds and many others. However, on the directorial front his list of work is much smaller and doesn’t include near the caliber of hits.
Premium Rush is about bike couriers. That’s a pretty unique setting for a film. I can’t even recall bike couriers playing any sort of significant role in any other movie. It’s intriguing because while most people have probably heard of the concept of what a bike courier in New York does, most people don’t know much more than that. For those that aren’t familiar with the concept, bike couriers exist as a type of same day, across town delivery service. They really only exist in large, densely populated places where one could conceivably be pretty efficient bicycling around town.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt was definitely the highlight of the film and the supporting cast just seemed pretty dim and simple-minded in comparison. It’s unfortunate because while he seems so ready to make this film worth watching, he is held back by virtually everything else. His girlfriend, played by Dania Ramirez, is flat beyond belief. Even with all the effort to hype up some sort of contentious love triangle, I just can’t think of any value she actually added by being in the film. Gordon-Levitt’s courier rival, Wole Parks, isn’t much better. All you need to know about his character is to think of Terrel Owens around four years ago and imagine him having a job as a bike courier. I guess such a character could be mildly interesting or entertaining, but he was just so one dimensional. Yes, he’s a diva, but can’t you give us anything else?
The low point of the film is the villain played by Michael Shannon. His character has amateur caricature written all over it. He plays a NYPD cop who is a gambling addict, gets into lots of debt from some sort of Asian crime syndicate, loses some teeth while getting pummeled with a phone book, accidentally beats to death a member of said crime syndicate, and spends the whole film trying to steal a load of cash to pay off this debt thinking everything will still magically work work out in the end. The reality is his character is more reminiscent of someone who at 40 still lives in his mom’s basement and has a couple DUI’s from late nights out drinking with his high school buddies. The bigger issue is that his character is indicative of the generalized silliness that exists in the movie. Ever hear of the secret emergency code that all bicyclists adhere to and how they all will instantly come to the support of other cyclists (even ones they don’t like) when the code is triggered?
The whole bicycle courier thing is unique enough that it seems like something good could come of it. Unfortunately, I don’t think that success exists on the big screen. As exciting as they tried to make all the bicycle chase scenes, they were still just bicycle chase scenes. I think this might do well if adapted into a television series. It seems you could put this into motion on television with an appropriately sized budget and different courier jobs could provide the episodic nature needed for the small screen. Premium Rush just fails to provide the amount of excitement or depth necessary to justify it’s existence as a feature film.
