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Every day, 1500 bike messengers take to the streets of New York City, racing through traffic and taking risks to ensure that their customers’ important packages and documents reach their destinations on time. For some, it’s just a way to pay the bills. For others, though, it’s all about the rush.
Director David Koepp’s Premium Rush stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Wilee, a law school grad who chose to turn his back on life in a suit and tie in favor of the thrills and spills of a job as a New York City bike messenger.
Wilee has just 90 minutes to race through Manhattan and deliver an envelope to Chinatown. Even for a fearless rider like Wilee—who rides a bike without gears or brakes—it’s a bit of a challenge. But he has to do it while being tracked by both an angry bike cop (Christopher Place) and dirty detective Bobby Monday (Michael Shannon), who’s desperate to get his hands on whatever’s inside the envelope.
Premium Rush is a remarkably simple thriller. For the most part, it’s just one guy who’s trying to make a delivery and another guy who’s trying to stop him. Of course, there are a few other details to fill in—like what’s in the envelope and why Monday is so desperate to get it. But the details don’t really matter. Even the attempts to develop the characters and their relationships and rivalries seem completely unnecessary (not to mention a little confusing).
What really matters, then, is the death-defying, high-speed bike-chasing action—and, fortunately, there’s plenty of it. Gordon-Levitt’s Wilee spends most of the film speeding through Big Apple traffic, dodging pedestrians and sneaking through alleys as he tries to lose the menacing cop who’s never far behind. It’s some pretty thrilling, X Games kind of stuff—and some stylized graphics and a handful of almost video game-like sequences add some visual interest, keeping the nearly non-stop chase scenes from becoming monotonous.
The film’s greatest flaw is its inconsistent tone. Most of the time, it’s a pretty light and entertaining film. Gordon-Levitt makes a likably easy-going hero, and it’s clear that he’s just having a good time with the role. Sometimes, though, it takes a darker, grittier turn. At other times, it’s dramatic. And then there’s Shannon, who makes a bizarre—and often totally ridiculous—villain. His character is completely unhinged, and his performance is so over-the-top that even Nicolas Cage might say, “Dude, that’s a bit much.” It almost feels as though, following an all-night bender, Shannon stumbled onto the wrong movie set, and the director decided just to run with it.
Still, that’s part of what makes Premium Rush fun to watch. It isn’t mind-blowing or thought-provoking. It isn’t especially memorable. But, with its high-speed chases and over-the-top characters, it’s a guilty pleasure on two wheels.
