Drive Angry

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🎙️ EPISODE 510: 07.14.22 Starting in 2020, I decided to watch & review the entire Nicolas Cage filmography in alphabetical order. This is 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔜𝔢𝔞𝔯 𝔬𝔣 ℭ𝔞𝔤𝔢 – Chapter 21. In my book, if you're gonna make a movie that is impossibly stupid you might as well do so in style, and that's about the best thing I can say for Drive Angry, an ultra-violent, and completely over the top thrill ride shot for 3D: it's dumb as shit but also fun (or as much fun as a movie about a dude escaping Literal Hell to do vengeance can be). Cage plays John Milton, a dour and bleached blonde underworld escapee whose idea of paradise has been long since lost. He gets out of Hell the only way a man like that can: in a cartoon version whilst driving a classic car...

That intro is voiced by famed character actor William Fichtner and if it sounds like he's rushing through it, I think that's because the wonky animation was only so long and there was no way they could edit out a single word of that important introduction lol. We're then properly introduced to Cage's character (outside of Cartoon Hell) and it is the sickest, most violent, CGI-drenched thing you've ever seen...


Cage is looking for a baby (or as he puts it, a "babbi-gurl"), as one who hath just escaped the fiery pits is wont to do. After that exchange, we get the title card and it lets the audience know we're about to watch a grindcore movie originally shot for 3D, HELL YES...


We then meet Amber Heard's character (sexy small-town waitress) and her co-worker played by Katy Mixon (Eastbound and Down) who is so goddam super horny for Cage that she asks him if he wants coffee when he already has coffee and then they have a totally normal exchange...


Meanwhile, Amber Heard gets sexually assaulted by her boss so she sexually assaults him back, quits because she gave a poor family free muffins, and does a quick change into some daisy dukes before singing Peaches' "Fuck the Pain Away" in her Dodge Charger...


Cage takes notice of this no-bullshit broad and is conveniently waiting in the shadows when her Dodge Charger conveniently breaks down. Back at the diner, William Fichtner shows up looking for Cage. He plays a guy named The Accountant, which is basically just Death minus the black cloak and scythe. He questions Katy Mixon and the boss about his whereabouts and he seems like a nice guy...


Amber Heard drops Cage off outside of her trailer park where she finds her fiancé, Stone Cold Steve Austin, with another girl in bed and she punches the girl out and then her fiancé beats her up but Cage sees it and he beats up Stone Cold and then an air-conditioner falls on his head...


Needless to say, the engagement is OFF! Cage drives off with Amber Heard in the backseat unconscious, and has a weird memory/flashback of a sick preacher guy or something who steals a baby and kills its parents. They stop at a rowdy bar/motel called Bull by the Horns where Amber Heard goes off with a busboy, presumably to bang but later we see that he just gets naked, does coke with her and paints her toenails. It's all in the details, folks. Hot on their trail, The Accountant winds up at the trailer park and Stone Cold is showing no signs of having an AC unit fall on his head just moments prior, but don't worry, The Accountant has special powers and kills him anyway...


Despite the cartoon which the movie began with, it still attempts a rouse that maybe Cage just escaped a regular prison and this guy isn't one of Satan's little helpers. But that jig is up pretty fast when The Accountant flips a magic coin which turns into an FBI badge (?!) and enlists a couple of local cops to help him find Cage and "shoot to kill" presumably via some sort of brainwashing. Who cares. It's not important.

Back at the motel, Cage is attacked by some of that preacher dude's henchmen and he fends them all off WHILE HAVING SEX WITH A WAITRESS AND DRINKING A BOTTLE OF WHISKEY AND SMOKING CIGAR. I'll now attempt to clip some of that for you as tastefully as possible...


Just delirious. Amber Heard comes in at the end of that and impales the last dude with a gardening hoe. Those were all lackeys of the preacher guy (Jonah) who wants Cage dead (or as dead as an already-dead guy can get — more on this later). At this point, The Accountant and his two brainwashed cops arrive. Cage and Amber Heard kill both of the officers and then drive off. They have a really bad green-screen car conversation as they flee where we learn that Amber Heard is worried about going to jail for shooting a cop and also that Jonah killed Cage's daughter and stole his granddaughter, which — if you're gonna escape from Literal Hell — this seems like the appropriate revenge/rescue scenario...


The Accountant catches up to them and they have a comically long car chase over a bridge that looked to be about 500-feet long. This ends with Cage pulling out an ancient magic shotgun with Latin writing on it and narrowly missing his foe, but it does send him flying off the bridge and crashing the police car he'd stolen...


Only (duh) you can't kill a messenger from the underworld, as we find out later when two stoners come upon The Accountant's crashed vehicle...


Cage and Amber Heard find themselves in a church and he spots the baby! Only when he tries to snatch it, every single person in the congregation stops singing their hymnal and pulls a gun on him before Jonah pops out. It's comical...


Then he shoots Cage in the eye and kidnaps Amber Heard in his RV...


But of course Cage lives because he's not exactly human. And he kills a bunch of dudes in the church before getting into another cool car chase...


Man, that one's dude wig LMFAO! WHY? But I'll be honest, this car chase sequence is extremely rad and so many people die in so many ways in such a short amount of time...




He rescues Amber Heard and she ties a badass (stupid) skull bandana over cage's shot out eyeball injury lol. They meet a tow truck driver played by another all-time character actor (David Morse ) and he knows who Cage is and says that he knows he died previously. It's been clear for awhile now, but they basically spell it out here that Cage is a non-human entity because, in the world of Drive Angry, you can escape Literal Hell if A) your thirst for vengeance is strong enough, and B) you have to make a movie where all this dumb shit happens. The reasons are one and the same. That being said, this small-town truck driver they just randomly run into being an old friend is easily the most incredulous part yet. Come on. This guy agrees to help them by offering Cage his pick of two impeccably restored classic cars (Cage also turns a down a beer because he doesn't want a beer unless he's drinking it from Jonah's skull — hmmm, probably just a bad-ass throwaway line of dialogue that won't actually come into play later)...


A bunch of state troopers set up a roadblock and the cop in charge tells them all to aim at Cage's head (OK) but The Accountant shows up driving a massive fuel tanker (WHAT LOL) and barrels through all the cops, granting Cage and Amber Heard safe passage. What's that all about? It's a ridiculous three minutes...


The Accountant does his stupid coin flip/FBI badge thing again and outs one of the cops as a devil worshiper/follower of Jonah and makes him call the evil preacher. Why not? ...


All of William Fichtner's line reads in this are so funny and weird. I love it. I mean, I hate it and it's bad, but I also love it.

They all wind up in Louisiana where some hedonistic Satan party is happening on the side of a highway. I think they're gonna sacrifice the baby :( Everything is hanging by a thread here, but basically what happens is The Accountant shows up and takes Amber Heard hostage, and we learn that he is actually there to help because Jonah and his gang actually figured out a way to make a portal to hell from earth (via baby sacrifice?, BUT, if Cage dies (how can he "die"?) in the process, he's actually killing two birds with stone? I thought it made more sense while I was watching but scanning my notes now, I have no idea. Anyhoot, Cage interrupts the baby sacrifice with some sick car stunts...


...and The Accountant kills two dudes with a magic coin trick...


It's total chaos mode as Cage tries to shoot people as his car is on fire, but he runs out of ammo and floors it at Jonah, who counters by knocking over a bunch of bombs and shit and lighting it up with his gun, torching and blowing up Cage's ride in the process...


To be honest, all of this is a little less effective knowing that Cage CANNOT DIE. He immediately walks away from that crash and starts killing people again. But oh well, let's look at this historic moment in filmmaking one more time...


Then Amber Heard uses the magic shotgun, only she shoots some random dude instead of Jonah and blows up the RV in the process...



If the special FX look like they're getting worse, I think that's a fair assessment. But don't worry, there's one more glorious bit around the corner which puts all the other moments to shame. First, I'd like to briefly mention the totally nondescript woman charged with holding a knife to this baby's throat during all this. I don't even think she has any lines yet she ends up being a crucial part of the conclusion as she ultimately decides that slitting an infant's throat just ain't her thang. Also, she is 100% holding a babydoll "Bradley Cooper in American Sniper" style...



There's one final fight between Cage and Jonah, and the evil preacher gets the upper hand. But The Accountant materializes and makes a clicking noise with his mouth that teleports (?) the magic shotgun into Cage's hand and he blasts Jonah into outer space. You're gonna wanna watch this a few hundred times...



And that's that, folks. He gives his granddaughter to Amber Heard and David Morse and then drinks that beer out of Jonah's blood-soaked skull. Remember? From that thing he said before? Anyway, Cage does that. He drinks that beer from the skull, even though most of it spills out of the cracks, then he and The Accountant drive back into Cartoon Hell in a cool-looking car that materializes out of nowhere, all soundtracked by a cover version of a song from Meatloaf's 2006 record, Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose (!!!)...


This one never took itself too seriously, which is the best thing it has going for it. It's just a crazy, unrelenting trip, and it's honestly entertaining for the most part.

As for Cage's performance, though... I have to say, it's one of the more unremarkable elements here. He's kind of phoningit in and he never turns the dial up past 6 or 7 — which in a movie like this, which I've just described and shared in some detail — seems like kind of a waste? Oh well, what Drive Angry could've been if we'd gotten a more insane Cage featured in it? One can only dream.

THE VERDICT: 7 CAGES OUT OF 10 • CLICK HERE for all 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔜𝔢𝔞𝔯 𝔬𝔣 ℭ𝔞𝔤𝔢 Chapters + Ongoing Rankings.

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 509 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 510B ⫸

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Drive Angry (alternatively titled Drive Angry 3D) is a 2011 American action horror film in the grindhouse cinema tradition, directed by Patrick Lussier, who co-wrote it with Todd Farmer. The film stars Nicolas Cage, Amber Heard, William Fichtner, Billy Burke, Charlotte Ross, Katy Mixon, and Tom Atkins. It was released on February 25, 2011.