Drive (1997)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Really Surprised!

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

best movie i've ever seen.

Mark Dacascos stars as Toby Wong, a genetically altered soldier who escapes from the Chinese corporation that built him and is on the run from thugs looking to return him back, also on board is Kadeem Hardison who becomes Dacascos' hostage and partner while top notch martial arts action ensues. Drive is certainly a fun movie, filled with non-stop martial arts, kinetically staged shoot outs and a good performance from Dacascos in the role. What really hurts Drive is its far too jokey tone which is just too much to take. The dialog and would be humor is too obvious and the movie really only comes to life when Dacascos springs back in action. This of course isn't that much of a problem, as it's not much of a problem that the villains are underwritten and the movie is often vague in its science fiction elements, Drive is a very enjoyable B.movie, certainly among straight to video movies, however this could've been easily a four star movie had it just not strained so hard to be funny. Don't let me get the wrong idea that this is not a good movie, it is, in fact it's a great B.movie it's just a flaw that sort of bothered my otherwise pleasing viewing of Drive.* * * out of 4-(Good)

This unknown movie maybe one of the best action movies I have seen. To my surprise everything works. Mark Dacascos is great. This is one of the few where he has gotten the chance to show what he can do. Kadeem Harrison isn't annoying in the supporting role and has some good chemistry with Dacascos. Even Brittany Murphy performs well. Although again she plays a socially awkward but endearing character. I wonder how much of that is acted and how much of it is real. It is very fascinating since it is hard to tell whether she is insane or just happily disturbed.Like I said the action is top notch. MD delivers on this front like he did in Crying Freeman. Very reminiscent of Hong Kong style action. And this should not be a total surprise since Koichi Sakamoto and the Alpha Stunt Team was behind the stunts for Drive. They were attached to the Power Rangers franchise if that means anything to you. The martial arts sometimes is used in combination with wireworks. But it is not obvious. In this way it intensifies the action scenes. I must admit that the climax: fight between MD and other "super" man could have been much longer but still it is a great finale. The main highlight is the sequence in the motel where we get introduced to Brittanny Murphy's character. It's a very long but very rewarding scene interchanged with a lot of comedic bits. For a low budget production the movie looks great. The plot is adequate and provides a good background for the main characters. (At least it was in my version: director's cut).Overall it is a very fun and fast paced movie and still holds up today.

I don't know why some rate this movie as a "B" action movie. The martial arts in this movie is incredible. I would most definitely recommend this movie to all martial arts fans. Yes the story line may be lacking a little, but I would rate the fighting in this movie right alongside movies like Fearless, and any other Jet Li or Jackie Chan movie. Mark Dacascos is an excellent martial artist and deserves the respect as one. The reason he doesn't seem to get much recognition is because whenever he gets to be a big-time movie, he seems to play the evil character and he always seems to die. I say let him be a big-time martial arts production and he will not disappoint.

SO many people out there have words about Drive, saying it's just a knock off of Rush Hour. Nope. Drive was made first. Not only that, Drive has been referenced in a bunch of movies, as far up as THE MATRIX (Agent Smith's glasses cracking in 1/2 - that scene was shot the same day that production peoples met with the action supervisor of Drive... where the same thing happens!) It's too bad that people on the money side had to mess this film up. I saw the regular release, and liked it enough to go out and buy it. It was a better than average action film, and could have done OK in theaters, I think... it didn't need to be a direct-to-video movie. Recently I saw the director's cut and DAMN IT'S GOOD! This movie would have been huge in theaters I think. Unfortunately someone on the financing side decided to cut the movie down and change the soundtrack, so the 117 min cut became the 100 minute cut and lost it's buzz... and was eventually relegated to the direct-to-video market. This is a shame, cause the directors cut is awesome.Great action, great witty dialogue, the first (that I know of, correct me if I'm wrong) "cattle prod/electric baton" fight scene, and the main char.s name is TOBY WONG. If you don't get the reference, think about it... if you still don't get it, this movie's probably not for you anyway.This is a great movie, hopefully we'll see the director's cut eventually get a DVD release... until then the 100 min version is pretty damn good.Directors Cut: 9 out of 10 Video Cut: 7 out of 10