The Driver is a 1978 American neo-noir crime thriller film written and directed by Walter Hill, and starring Ryan O'Neal, Bruce Dern and Isabelle Adjani. The film features only unnamed characters, and follows a getaway driver for robberies (O'Neal) whose exceptional talent has prevented him being caught. A detective determined to apprehend him (Dern) promises pardons to a gang if they help catch him in a set-up robbery.
20th Century Fox released The Driver on July 28, 1978. The film was a box office disappointment in the United States but performed better overseas. Despite initial negative reviews it has become one of Hill's most popular films, and received more positive critical reception and a cult following in later years. Directors Quentin Tarantino, Nicolas Winding Refn and Edgar Wright have all cited its influence.
Plot The Driver steals cars for use as getaway vehicles in robberies around Los Angeles. He is known among criminals for his high skill and his high price, and is notorious among the police, particularly for The Detective who is obsessed with capturing The Driver whom he calls "Cowboy".
The Driver pulls a job at a casino where his co-conspirators are late and he is seen by The Player. The Detective asks her to identify The Driver, but she denies seeing him. The Driver comes to The Player's apartment to pay her. They are interrupted by The Detective, who threatens The Player and alludes to her criminal history.
The Detective sets up an illegal sting. He offers three arrested criminals – Glasses, Teeth and their driver, Fingers – a deal: hire The Driver for a bank heist and deliver him to the police; in return, they will go free. They seek The Driver via The Connection, his middleman and fence. The Driver initially refuses to work with the men due to his dislike of guns, but agrees to meet with them. When his driving skill is questioned, he systematically wrecks the criminals' car in a display of his prowess, and tells the gang he will not work with them. Later, Teeth visits The Driver to ask him again to join them, eventually threatening him with a gun. The Driver challenges Teeth to shoot, before beating him down. The Detective taunts The Driver at his rented room and challenges him to a 'game'. Despite being aware it is a set up, The Driver agrees to take part in the job on the conditions that his fee is doubled and Teeth is not involved.
During the heist, Glasses kills Fingers and escapes with The Driver. He does not deliver The Driver to The Detective, instead planning to kill him and make off with the money. The Driver surprises him with a gun, kills him, and stashes the money in a locker at Union Station. He has The Connection launder the dirty money and enlists The Player to retrieve it once clean. Meanwhile, Teeth has discovered Glasses dead and interrogates The Connection at gunpoint, killing her once she has revealed The Driver's plans.
At the train station, The Exchange Man stashes the clean money in a locker, then boards a train with the dirty money. He is followed on board by The Detective, who kills him in a shootout. Teeth robs The Player of her purse containing the key to the clean money locker. Teeth and his driver, The Kid, are pursued by The Driver and The Player in a car chase culminating in a warehouse, where The Driver drives directly at Teeth's car, causing them to swerve and flip the car. The Driver kills Teeth when he refuses to surrender. The Kid returns the purse and is allowed to leave.
The Driver and The Player return to the train station. When The Driver retrieves the bag from the locker, The Detective and several police officers appear, but the bag is empty, the money having been ripped off by the Exchange Man. The Player leaves. The Driver leaves The Detective literally 'holding the bag' as each person departs.
Cast None of the characters in the film are identified by name.
Ryan O'Neal as The Driver Bruce Dern as The Detective Isabelle Adjani as The Player Ronee Blakley as The Connection Matt Clark as Red Plainclothesman Felice Orlandi as Gold Plainclothesman Joseph Walsh as Glasses Rudy Ramos as Teeth Denny Macko as Exchange Man Frank Bruno as The Kid Will Walker as Fingers Sandy Brown Wyeth as Split Tara King as Frizzy Richard Carey as Floorman Fidel Corona as Card Player Victor Gilmour as Boardman Nick Dimitri as Blue Mask Bob Minor as Green Mask Peter Jason as Commuter Allan Graf as Uniformed Cop
Production
Development The Driver is the second film Walter Hill wrote and directed after Hard Times (1975), which starred Charles Bronson. Hill and producer Larry Gordon had just finished Hard Times when Gordon suggested to Hill that they make a film about a getaway driver, to which Hill agreed. Hill then wrote an original screenplay over the summer of 1975, in between the period when Hard Times was made and when it was released (there was a delay because the studio was waiting for other Bronson films to come out).
Hill says he was interested to see how "pure" a film he could make: a genre film that did not conform itself in conventional, Hollywood ways. He said he wrote it as a "very tight script." "I knew when I was getting ready to do the movie that I was taking a chance", said Hill. "This was not meant to be an everyday action movie. I was trying to do something a little more, or a little less, but I was trying to do something else." The script was written in a sparse, minimalist style, which Hill had first employed on Hard Times: "I thought that approach made people read with greater intention. It's spare in detail but written to dramatic effect. You could maybe capture the mind of the reader a little better." Hill sent a copy of the original draft of the script to director Raoul Walsh, who gave it his approval.
Pre-production and casting In the late 1970s, Britain's EMI Films came under the stewardship of Michael Deeley and Barry Spikings. They began co-financing movies shot in Hollywood in association with major US studios that were aimed at the international market, such as Convoy, The Deer Hunter and The Driver. They were interested in financing The Driver provided a suitable star could be found for the lead.
According to Hill, the script was unable to bring in talents for "about a year and a half." The role of the Driver was originally intended for Steve McQueen, who had starred in the Hill-scripted The Getaway (1972). McQueen turned down the role because, as Hill stated, he refused to star in another film that revolved substantially around cars. The studio then went to Bronson, but he was unhappy with Hill. "He thought I had edited Hard Times in a way that had not favoured [Bronson's wife and co-star] Jill Ireland", said Hill, who added he "never thought" casting Bronson "was a good idea. And I never thought he'd do it." Hill was contacted by Ryan O'Neal's agent and agreed to meet the star. "We talked about the role and talked about the minimalist approach I wanted to try", said Hill. "He felt he could do it and we just got comfortable with each other." Although considered primarily a comedy and romantic star at the time, O'Neal's casting enabled the filmmakers to secure financing. O'Neal complimented the filmmaker as "a force to be reckoned with", as well as "a first rate writer and an even better director. And he's fast. Most young directors today think they are David Lean; they spend over a year on a film and we get robots that talk."
Several actors were considered for the female lead, including Julie Christie and Charlotte Rampling. Eventually, it went to Isabelle Adjani, who had gained an international reputation with The Story of Adele H (1975). This was Adjani's first Hollywood role; she had previously turned down the chance to star in The Other Side of Midnight (1977), but agreed to make The Driver because she was an admirer of Hard Times. Of Hill, Adjani commented: I think he is wonderful, very much in the tradition of Howard Hawks, lean and spare. The story is contemporary but also very stylized, and the roles that Ryan and I play are like Bogart and Bacall. We are both gamblers in our souls and we do not show our emotions or say a lot. For us, talk is cheap. I am really quite a mysterious girl in this film, with no name and no background. And I must say that it is restful not to have a life behind me; this way, I don't have to dig deep to play the part. All I know is that life for me is gambling and I am a loser. I have what people call a poker face. The studio recommended Robert Mitchum for the role of the Detective. Hill liked the idea and met with Mitchum to discuss the part but the actor turned it down. Hill ended up casting Bruce Dern. "I wanted Bruce's personality", he said. "Audiences get nervous about movies that don't have a lot of dialogue. [...] They like a balance. I wanted Bruce to very much offset the distance of The Driver."
Filming Principal photography took place entirely on-location in Los Angeles.
The film featured several car chase sequences designed by Hill and stunt coordinator Everett Creach. Hill says he felt the first chase was "kind of a failure" because it "was meant to lead up to a much more spectacular finish" but he was unable to film it properly: it was done on the last night of shooting and an electrician fell off the roof and was badly injured; Hill could not get all the shots he wanted and had to "cobble together" the result. However, he felt the sequence with the Mercedes 250 S in the garage and the final chase were "as fully realised as I could get them to be." Hill wanted to film chase scenes at night, which he felt had not been done many times in films before. In order to expedite this, Hill shot the dramatic scenes first during the day, then the chase scenes at night. Hill said the night shooting was draining: "It's like you're swimming underwater or hypnotised. And I'm a person that stays up late and wakes up early. But staying up night after night after night really threw me out. You make decisions you cannot explain. You just intuit."
Hill says the major visual influence on the film was the works of artist Edward Hopper. He was also influenced by his work as a second assistant director on Bullitt (1968), which featured a famous car chase. What fascinated Hill on Bullitt was the abundance of shots captured from inside the cars, which compelled him to film the same amount on The Driver. Production wrapped on the film April 1978.
Box office The movie was a commercial disappointment in the United States although it performed better overseas. Hill says "I don't think you could say the film did commercially well anywhere except Japan, where I believe it did reasonable business."
The film opened in 642 theatres in the United States, grossing $2 million for the weekend.
The film grossed a total of 1,102,183 admissions in France. It was the 33rd most popular film of the year.
EMI Films had announced plans to make another film with Hill, a Western called The Last Gun, but this did not happen.
Critical reception
Initial reviews Contemporary reviews were extremely poor. Hill later said, "I remember the studio had this huge sheaf of Xeroxed reviews they’d handed me—you could stop a fucking .45 slug with this stack, it was so thick. And of all the reviews in this six-inch thick pile, there was only one good one."