Drive Angry

All the boys love Mandy Lane IN HELL.

"One hell of a ride."

Howdy y'all welcome back to Thursday's thrilling edition of The Tagline. There's a lull in my movie-going schedule, so I needed some garbage to fill it with. Then, While I was flipping through channels I came across the truly lamentable Drive Angry. Those of you who've been following my posts for a while will probably remember me talking briefly about this movie when I reviewed Nick Cage's 5 Worst Films. I was initially content to leave it at that, but then I saw it again and I just felt like "wow this is really spectacular garbage, I should give my readers the benefit of experiencing this." To that end, today I will regale you once again with the tale of a man who escaped from hell, with the sole purpose of killing some guy who was going to use his granddaughter in a satanic ritual. Also in what I'm sure the writer thought was really clever, this guy's name is John Milton. That's not clever scriptwriter, it is shameful. You should feel ashamed, but I know you don't, obviously anyone with a sense of shame could not have made this movie. Anyway Nick stars as John Milton, a man who has returned from hell with the stolen gun of the devil (called Godkiller, it destroys the target's soul apparently) so that he can take bloody vengeance for the murder of his daughter, and also so he can rescue his baby granddaughter as mentioned above. In the process of tracking down the complete nutball coocoo who's planning to do this ritual (his name is Jonah King, and he's portrayed by the world's best mustache dad Billy Burke) Milton runs into Piper (Amber Heard) who works at a diner as a waitress and has a boyfriend who is a scumbag. Fortunately Milton is an undead scumbag, so he fits right in, and sabotages Piper's car so he can then proceed to FIX it, and get a ride. I think maybe stealing a car would have been more expedient if you already are from hell, but that's just me nitpicking I guess.

I guess they were figuring they could bank on just this.

Anyway after Piper finds out that surprise surprise her boyfriend is cheating on her, and then proceeds to get in a fistfight with him on the street, Milton stops by to beat the crap out of him and pull Piper's bacon out of the proverbial fire. Piper decides to take a hike, and so she tags along with Milton even though he is obviously a crazy person. I guess when you're seeing the world from Piper's perspective though, one maniac is just about as good as the next. So Piper tags along with Milton, who unbeknownst to them both (or maybe he does know I'm not really clear on that) Milton is being pursued from hell by a guy called the accountant, who is trying to drag his sorry butt back into perdition. This guy also makes a quick stop in to Piper's ex, to find out where Milton is going and then kill him, which I can absolutely sympathize with him there, that guy was a HUGE douche. It's about at this point that Milton and Piper stop at a shady truck stop, where Milton kills a room full of guys, in slow motion, while he is still having sex with a waitress, and drinking bourbon with his other hand. I mean... I don't know what there is to say about that other than what I just did, and it is more or less indicative of the rest of the movie.

Drink from me and live forever.

I think you're beginning to get the picture. This movie is about as grindhouse trashy as it gets, and I guess that's what it was going for, but again this is sort of that "even a deliberately bad movie is still bad" thing. Just because you set out to make something that's terrible doesn't somehow make it inherently noble or something. It just makes it another ridiculous movie where Nicolas cage is from hell. Cage purportedly was first drawn to the film because of a scene where his character gets his eyes shot out, and I mean, really that says more about him than I might ever be able to right there. Also a worthy moment of note involves Milton drinking beer out of King's shattered skull at the end of the movie. Quality production all around right there. Critics were... surprisingly divided on this movie, I guess some people, just like me, can't help but be drawn to the flaming disaster area that is Nicolas Cage. I was very sad to see that this movie failed to win the Razzie it was nominated for. It just couldn't compete with Adam Sandler's Jack & Jill... ugh.

Nice shades dude.

This movie was released during the height of THREEDEEMADNESS PART TWO so it was shot in 3D, and I can't think of anything that you can experience in life that's better than watching Nick Cage shoot a bunch of guys with a naked lady on top of him IN 3D!!!! That seems like the height of human experience if there could possibly be something. I sadly didn't have the opportunity to experience this white-knuckle thrill ride in 3D, I experienced it the same way I experience most everything else, on FX in the middle of the afternoon.

That's all for today! Join me again next week for fresher stuff, I know I have to go see Maleficent and I believe Edge of Tomorrow drops... well tomorrow.