David Morrisey (over-)emotes his way through 'The Driver', the story of an ordinary man who gets caught up with organised crime. As you do. And the problem with this drama is that Morrisey's character is wildly under-motivated for his actions, yet acts as if he a victim of unavoidable circumstances. Does a law-abiding taxi driver who runs into an old mate just out of prison suddenly decide to become a criminal himself? Is it really likely that on his first job, fetching and carrying for a gang, he nearly gets stopped by the police? Or that he gets called out to his new work every time his wife is about to make nice with him? And what really is the chance that, at key moment in an armed robbery (which is also a police sting), he feels compelled to flee the scene to take the last chance he'll ever get to see his son again? In some ways, it should be an easy story to tell, there are many temptations which lead people to be drawn into things which prove worse than they'd expected. But the driver seems to get no pay-off, and only immediate pain, for his inexplicable choice. The result is an unenlightening morality tale, with the odd gripping moment but too much anguish and not enough sense.
Review of The Driver
