PG-13, 91 min.
Director: David Koepp
Writers: David Koepp, John
Kamps
Starring: Joseph
Gordon-Levitt, Michael Shannon, Dania Ramirez, Wolé Parks, Jamie Chueng, Aasif
Mandvi, Christopher Place, Henry O
“Jurassic Park”, “Carlito’s
Way”, “Mission: Impossible”, “Panic Room”, “Spider-Man”, “Secret Window”, “War
of the Worlds”, “Zathura: A Space Adventure”, “Ghost Town”—Those are some of
the good screenplays written by David Koepp. “Toy Soldiers”, “Death Becomes Her”,
“The Lost World: Jurassic Park”, “The Shadow”, and “Snake Eyes” are some of his
worst. “Premium Rush” will categorically fall in the latter set of Koepp
screenplays. This movie is bad. Its
collection of clichés is rendered laughable by its even greater collection of
ridiculous coincidences and utter impossibilities.
It pulls the curtain back on
the life of the New York City bike currier in a fashion that I’m sure will have
every NYC bike currier rolling on the floor laughing. The life of a currier is
dangerous—which I’m sure is true to a good degree. So, the hero faces his job
that nets him somewhere between $50 to $80 a day, from what I could tell, with
the intensity of a general preparing to invade a powerful country. This is life
and death, folks; and people’s lives depend on their deliveries.
They quite literally do here
as the villain, a cop, finds himself in debt to some Chinese bookies who inform
him of a package that would eliminate his debts should he steal it. Otherwise,
he might have to disappear. The package in question is also a matter of life
and death for the person who sends it, but I’ll leave the reasons for that for
you poor souls to discover should you want to torture yourselves with this
movie after this review.
Question—How do the Chinese
bookies know about the package before it has even originated?
The movie gives you a handy
clock to let you know how long you have until the events reach their
destination point. Of course, the clock is also handy since the time line has
been fractured out of sequence to hide certain elements of the plot from the
audience, and apparently from the screenwriter himself, such as when the cop
learns of the package sometime between 3:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. when the package
isn’t even created until about 10 or 15 minutes after 4 p.m. I’m sure someone
will inform me about how I’ve misinterpreted the clock. If that’s the case,
does this simple plot really need to be rendered that confusing by a scattered
timeline?
Anyway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt
plays the currier who doesn’t care about anything or anyone until he does.
Michael Shannon plays the cop who is so insane the NYPD IA department should
hang their heads in shame. Of course, these two actors are about the only
watchable elements of the movie. They are good at making their ridiculous cutout
characters interesting.
Questions—If only the best
currier in the city can get the package to its destination on time, how does
every other major character in the plot, including the woman who sent the
package, manage to get to its ultimate destination by the time it needs to be
there? If she could get to the place by the time it needed to be there,
especially since she didn’t even begin her journey there until two hours after
she sent the currier, what the hell did she need him for?
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