At some point over the course of cinema history the phrase “popcorn movie” was developed. Its exact meaning is a bit malleable—changing depending on which project you’re attaching it to—but in general it’s used to describe action-based blockbusters, the sort of big budgeted spectacles that come out solely during the summer months. There’s one aspect of the word’s meaning that seems to have been lost somewhere along the way, however, and that’s its use to describe a film as being a light watch, a breezy, relatively mindless good time that isn’t asking too much of the audience. Modern blockbusters have become too lengthy, earnest, and steeped in the mythology of their source material (and there’s always source material). It’s with a blowing gust of fresh air, then, that Premium Rush races into theaters, bringing with it a 91 minute run-time, a ton of action, and an original story that doesn’t take much thinking to keep up with. Now this, this is the sort of fast and fun flick that we should be referring to as a popcorn movie. Those bloated and overblown things that we’ve been getting recently, they’re more... carmel corn movies.
The story is this: Joseph Gordon-Levitt is playing a bike messenger named Wilee. He’s just the sort of irresponsible, thrill-seeking free-spirit that you would imagine a bike messenger named after a cartoon coyote would be, but he manages to take things a step further. The bike he rides is fixed-gear, which means no coasting, and it has no brakes, which means no unplanned stops. He handles his life just like he handles his cycling, by always plowing forward, never slowing down, and thinking quick in the moment rather than planning ahead. As you might imagine, this isn’t always the most problem-free way to live, and it doesn’t always endear him to others. As if Wilee’s life wasn’t complicated enough due to his disgruntled girlfriend (Danica Ramirez) and his rival for his disgruntled girlfriend’s affections (Wolé Parks) both working for the same courier company that he does, his troubles manage to increase 1000% due to a mysterious and valuable piece of paper he’s asked to deliver to Chinatown—a piece of paper a dirty cop called Bobby Monday (Michael Shannon) would sink to any low to get his hands on. The results are a thrilling series of cat and mouse chases that will eventually lead to one of the players reaching their goal, and the other splayed out somewhere along the route. Seeing as this is a popcorn flick, the destination is probably never in much doubt, but it’s not the destination that makes life worth living, it’s the journey.
And, along those same pseudo-philosophical lines, it’s not the way Premium Rush’s fairly simple plot wraps itself up that makes the movie worth watching, it’s all of the fun bike chases that get you to that end point. When you first hear that a film has this title and this premise, the logical conclusion to jump to is that it’s going to be a loud, ADD-ridden Mountain Dew commercial of a movie... but nothing could be further from the truth. The chase scenes in Premium Rush are fast and thrilling, but they’re not about speed alone, and they’re not the sort of ultra-kinetic, choppy action sequences that leave you scratching your head and disoriented. The chases here are clever and inventive, they’re all about Wilee having to not only get away from his pursuers, but also deal with the never-ending sequence of obstacles that constantly appear in his path. The chases here force the protagonist to muster up some ingenuity, outsmart the guy on his tail, and utilize his surroundings in impressive and stunt work-heavy ways. Essentially, it’s the opening sequence of Drive where Gosling avoids the cops instead of outrunning them, but stretched out to feature length.
Even when Wilee’s not on the bike, like in the scene where he finds himself in a police station, surrounded by enemies, he still finds himself having to traverse a series of obstacles. He’s got to avoid the bike cop he pissed off who’s walking down the hall toward him... but the closest exit is locked... and Bobby Monday is going to be coming out of that other door any minute...what to do? Where to go? How to keep moving? The fact that he periodically has to field phone calls from his perturbed girlfriend or negotiate business with his cocky rival, all while avoiding his own murder, just adds another delicious layer of complications to his efforts. And not only are those complications fun, but they never come at the cost of the film’s pacing. The subplot about his relationship issues, the subplot about his co-worker always trying to take what’s his, and even the subplot about the bike cop he keeps running afoul of, they all get folded into his race to deliver the package. Characters get developed, stories get told, but the action never stops in order to make it all happen. This is movie making on the run—no slow scenes of people spitting exposition in front of a stationary camera required.
Don’t let that comment about the camera moving scare you either. One of the strongest aspects of this film is how well it’s shot. Like I mentioned earlier, this isn’t the sort of shakily framed, frantically edited jumble that you might be expecting. Director David Koepp and cinematographer Mitchell Amundsen’s camera moves, but it moves smoothly and assuredly. Instead of just filming their action sequences from as many angles as possible and cobbling something sequential together later, you can tell that every shot of every sequence is meticulously planned out and skillfully executed, and that gives the editors the ability to hold on shots long enough to keep you oriented and to actually show off the hard work that’s been put into what you’re watching. When you’ve got this many cars, bikes, pedestrians, and who-knows-what-else frantically moving around your frame, there’s no need to jerk your camera around to create the illusion of things being exciting. Things really are exciting, and that gives the filmmakers the opportunity to focus all of their energies on capturing the action clearly and artfully. Those bloated summer movies that contain too many action sequences to properly plan, or that want to shoot things larger in scope than they can afford, they end up having to resort to shaky-cam tactics in order to hide their lameness, and they need to take note. Keep your action simple, map every detail of it out, shoot it clearly, and that’s all you have to do to make an audience happy. Premium Rush doesn’t have any aliens, any superheroes, any high tech gadgets—just a kid on a bike—and it was able to craft some of the coolest action stuff that’s hit theaters in a long time.
The other secret weapon this movie has up its sleeve is one of its performances. No, it’s not the one that comes from Gordon-Levitt, though he’s long proven himself to be a versatile actor and is able to pull off everything asked of him here without breaking a (figurative) sweat, it’s the one that comes from the man playing the villain of the piece, Michael Shannon. In the past five years or so Shannon has gone from being a fairly anonymous character actor to being a name and a face who has turned in such a wealth of great performances that he can no longer be ignored; and his turn as Bobby Monday here is going to do nothing but add to his growing legend. This movie wouldn’t have been half as fun if it just had a generically menacing bad guy going after the protagonist, and I find it difficult to think of any other actor who could have taken the Monday character, as he must have looked on the page, and made him as quirky and interesting as he was when brought to life by Shannon.
The man’s performance is so weird that I find it hard to even explain what he was even going for. Shannon’s dirty cop felt like something out of a comic strip. He has an anger boiling beneath his surface that always keeps you on the edge of your seat, sure, but he also has an outdated and fairly nerdy strangeness to him that keeps him sort of sympathetic, even when he’s doing despicable things. Bobby Monday feels like a 40s throwback who should be trading knuckle-sandwiches with Dick Tracy or The Spirit, and instead he’s forced to live in the modern world and go up against this clueless hipster kid, which just makes him angrier than he naturally is already. And, generally, the angrier Shannon gets in this movie, the more fun he is to watch. Gordon-Levitt’s character may be the one named after the cartoon coyote, but really he’s much closer in DNA to the trickster Road Runner. It’s Shannon who’s playing the frustrated predator; always growing more desperate, always getting pushed another step further in how far he’s willing to go. One of the great joys of this film is in waiting for him to snap, and in dreading what the consequences are going to be when he finally does.
But there are plenty of other joys that come from watching this film too. This is a popcorn movie, after all, so it has to be chalk full of fun stuff. Some of the most enjoyable are the sequences where Wilee is heading toward an imminent crash course with some sort of person or thing and all of the action stops as we go into his perspective as he assesses the situation. All of the possible paths he can take to avoid the obstruction are given to us, choose your own adventure style, until he finally finds the one that leads to him narrowly escaping rather than meeting a grizzly end. It’s a great way to add some fantasy gore to the mix without getting morbid or heavy. The movie manages to be pretty funny too. It’s not laugh-a-minute, and nothing is really hilarious, but the little comedic touches that get sprinkled throughout really work, and that’s rare for movies that try to be funny but aren’t made by comedians. The subplot with the frustrated bicycle cop—who isn’t nearly skilled enough with his bike to be going up against these reckless messengers, and who, given the choice, probably would have rather pulled any other detail coming out of the Academy—is especially chuckle worthy. It adds some clowning in with the disturbing stuff that Shannon is doing, and helps keep the mood light.
Which is important, because the reason Premium Rush is ultimately able to work is that it keeps things so light and so fun that you never get the chance to realize you’re watching a movie about annoying bike messengers. Let’s face it, people who are into cycling are mostly obnoxious fundamentalists, and people who do courier stuff on them are usually the worst of the bunch. They’re pretentious, hipster doofuses who regularly put everyone around them in danger, and it’s hard to find anyone who isn’t a bike messenger who likes them. That this movie is able to get you to root for the guy with the tattoos and the B.O. who bumps into you outside of your office building is a real feat, and it’s something to be commended. Against all odds and expectations, Premium Rush is an easy recommendation, and one of the best wide release films of the summer.
