We have all been there, we needed something delivering! Ok not all of us live in New York, and not all of us will have decided we need a bike messenger to get our cargo from A to B. But even as a cycling novice, I know that these crazy bike messengers in the big apple, or any large city, are a quick way to make sure your delivery gets done quick in a city. However, is said courier method going to make for an interesting film?
The first thing going for Premium Rush is that it has Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the leading role. JGL is quickly establishing himself as one of the more versatile and interesting actors or our generation, showing up in mammoth movies like The Dark Knight Rises, and one of my favourite films of last year, the superb Looper. Here he plays Wiley, as in the Coyote, a fixed gear and steel frame wielding bike messenger who, lets face it, has a bit of a death wish. He firmly believes brakes on a bike are a sure fire way to get yourself killed, instead he ducks and weaves through New York traffic going full speed and with no intention of slowing down.
The Second thing that this film has is Michael Shannon as the Villain. Now Shannon is soon to be seen in the cinematic rebirth of the last son of Kyrpton in Man Of Steel, playing non other then General Zod, so getting a chance to see him flex his evil muscle in this was massively interesting to me. And he doesn’t disappoint, with a very memorable unhinged bad guy hounding Wiley from the get go. Having already shown his ability to create and engaging and powerful performance in Take Shelter, seeing another side to this man is one of the movie’s big plus points.
Finally, one of the rarely commented on aspects of cinema, the editing! The film is heightened by the speed and efficiency of the editing, and couple that with some cool aerial graphic of NYC as they plot out the routes the bikers take makes it a really fun watch.
That said, its not all roses for Premium rush, as in the end the story boils down to a good guy/bad guy chase for the majority of the run time, and not a lot of innovation in that department either. Although playing with time through out does liven it up a little it’s a bit of a played out story. Couple that with some ridiculous elements which make it hard to focus on what is going on and you’re in trouble. Seriously, a man with broken ribs is NOT going to be BMXing his way over cars and jumping fences to then sprint across town. He’s just not!
All in all I did enjoy Premium Rush and do recommend it just to get more of a JGL fix and to see what kind of Zod we can expect to order us to Kneel in the summer. And if you like fast pace, modern adrenalin drama then sit your self in the saddle and get this express delivered.
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