Drive Hard

Australian director Brian Trenchard-Smith's idiotic heist clunker revolves around Peter Roberts (Thomas Jane), a former racecar driver now working as a driving instructor, and Simon Keller (John Cusack), a fellow American who ostensibly hires Peter in order to learn how to navigate the opposite side of the road driving in Queensland. But, of course, that's not the real reason: Simon needs a getaway driver to help him escape when he pulls off an audacious bank heist that nets $9 million in bearer bonds. So that's what kidnapped Peter is forced to do—at gunpoint. As the pair are doggedly pursued by state and federal law enforcement officers, along with the bank's unscrupulous henchmen, they banter back and forth, with Simon offering frantic, henpecked Peter marital advice on how to handle his nagging wife (Yesse Spence), who wants him to take a more lucrative office job. Along the way, there are also unfortunate encounters with a foulmouthed, pistol-packing old lady; a bevy of bikers at a bar; and an ill-fated, trigger-happy convenience-store clerk. The cliché-filled dialogue is insipid and dull, but the chaotic action footage is even more tedious in this wannabe crime-caper comedy that runs out of gas quickly. Not recommended. (S. Granger)