"Drive Angry" Revs Into Softcore Porn, With Guns Blazing

Genre-unto-himself Nicolas Cage's latest displays much the same tattoo-parlor hellfire imagery as Ghost Rider, but this is the hard-R version, with Johnny Blaze's jellybeans from a goblet in the earlier film now replaced by a cold after-work beer drunk from a human skull.

Related Content

• "Seeking Justice" Gives Nic Cage Revenge – and his Once-a-Year Decent Movie
  March 15, 2012
• "Season of the Witch" Movie Review: A Dark Ages Adventure as Seen Through a Renaissance Festival
  January 6, 2011
• "Twilight Breaking Dawn–Part 1" Review: Bella and Edward Lock it Down
  November 17, 2011
• Johnny Depp Inhabits "The Rum Diary," Based on a Novel Hunter S. Thompson Began in the Early '60s
  October 27, 2011
• Drink and Food Events This Week in Broward, Palm Beach Counties
  September 19, 2011

More About

• Nicolas Cage
• Drive Angry
• Johnny Blaze
• Billy Burke
• William Fichtner

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

Cage plays a black-denim God’s Lonely Man, a stranger in town on a sworn mission to ride down the cult fronted by Billy Burke’s glam-messiah, who has absconded with a baby girl. Hellcat hash-slinger Piper (Amber Heard) comes along for the ride, while a mysterious, unflappable fed called "the Accountant" (William Fichtner) brings up the rear.

Cage’s avenger is named Milton; this reference to the author of Paradise Lostis the sole hint that Old World culture ever existed in Drive Angry’s convoy of hyperbolized-unto-parody Americana: bad drawls, obese gawkers, roadhouse demonology, coochie-cutter shorts, and engines revving under guitar stomp.

As one cannot discuss Battleship Potemkin without mentioning the Odessa Steps, so too with Drive Angry and the gonzo porn-ish scene in which a pack of thugs pull a coitus-interruptus ambush on Milton, who remains docked inside his partner while coolly eliminating his attackers. One’s attention has little occasion to flag, though the closing-credits comedown feels like a “Peeing Calvin” decal has watered your brain.