Product Description

Ryan O'Neal drives the getaway car for his buddies' robberies. Bruce Dern is determined to catch him.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15798 in DVD
• Brand: Twentieth Century Fox
• Released on: 2005-06-07
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 91 minutes

Amazon.com
A tres cool mix of noirish grit and slam-bang action this caper film from director Walter Hill (48 Hrs, The Warriors) is required viewing for car-chase fanatics and devotees of '70s cinema. Ryan O'Neal and Bruce Dern are terrific as opposite sides of the law: respectively, a supernaturally skilled getaway car driver, and the dogged detective who's pursued him at the expense of all else. For his second feature film, Hill keeps dialogue and character development at bare-bones level (the characters are named after their primary function: O'Neal is the Driver, the stunning Isabelle Adjani is the Connection) and focuses on mood, tone, and, above all, some of the most stunning automotive action captured on film. The DVD offers widescreen and fullscreen versions of the film; unfortunately, a number of scenes cut from the theatrical release, including a prologue featured in The Driver's TV prints, were not included in this long-awaited DVD release. --Paul Gaita

Customer Reviews

Why can't we have the 131 minute version ?
Come on this is the cut down version which has been available on dvd in the U.K for a couple of years.
At Los Angeles's American Cinemateque, a 131 minute version of "The Driver" was shown. While it does add insights to some characters in the story, this longer version features many more car chases.
This is lsited at IMDB.com under alternate versions, and should be the version due for dvd release, but is'nt WHY ???
COME ON AND PULL YOUR FINGER OUT THIS MOVIE DESERVES A TWO DISC SPECIAL EDITION, ARE YOU READING THIS ANCHOR BAY / BLUE UNDERGROUND ?
WE THE DRIVER FANS DEMAND THE FULL VERSION, SO FORGET THIS ONE AND WAIT.

An American Classic
This film makes GONE IN 60 SECONDS seem like a movie for 8 year olds. Although sold as a "car chase movie" there is a lot more to this film than that especially its tight plot, taut direction, mis en scene, and fun. It's a thriller whose cross and double cross shenanigans are a pure delight and recall the best of the likes of Howard Hawks in the film noir forties. It rivals Jean-Pierre Melville and if Walter Hill's name was Jean-Pierre Hill from Paris it would be thought of as a classic. Hill's crime is that he's American. Culturally snobbery at work again I believe. Forget the cars for a minute, dear viewer, and let's consider the four main actors and what they do. Ryan O'Neal plays incommunicative, lonely, cold, precise, and good to look at perfectly. Isabelle Adjani plays incommunicative, lonely, cold, precise and good to look at perfectly. Which leaves the screen to one of cinema's greatest actors - Bruce Dern - to really go for it. And go for it he does. He is at his brilliant, scene-stealing, word chewing best, and is frankly rivetting and incredible fun to watch. With O'Neal and Adjani walking through po-faced throughout, Dern has a field day and is very ably helped by his cop buddy Ronee Blakly. To top the movie off, there are some of the best car chase sequences on film, as good as BULLITT. This in my view is WALTER HILL's masterpiece (he also wrote the screenplay for SAM PECKINPAH's GETAWAY in 1972). It is absolutely horrifying to me to see that Video Hound's Golden Movie Retriever 2000 give this film one and half bones which makes me nervous about many of their other reviews. I've seen this film about 15 times. It holds up. Don't deny it to yourself if you love cinema.

One of the single best car chase films.
Amazing-and to this day a film that is not loved as much as it should be. Ryan O'Neal is great as the driver-a nearly silent Hawksian professional getaway driver. Bruce Dern is also good as a cop bent on catching this outlaw. Lots of western parallels. Great scene wherein O'Neal is asked to demonstrate his driving skill and he destroys the car that his fellow crooks have brought. Lots of great car chases-some of the best ever. Walter Hill really does a heck of a great job here(like he has before). A great film that deserves the cult following it has-it even deserved more-well worth owning.