Overdrive (2017)

(In French, On TV, October 2020) I’m a very good audience for car-centric action movies, and since we only get a Fast and the Furious instalment every other year, I have to bid my time with something in the meantime. Something, in this case, is Overdrive, and it’s not much of a stretch to call it a Fast and Furious derivative: Written by the screenwriters who have worked on the series (albeit on 2 Fast 2 Furious, easily the worst of the bunch), this film takes us to Marseilles, where a team of half-brothers specialize in stealing expensive cars for rich people. The plot gets underway when they are caught in the cross-fire between two very rich men: Agreeing to steal cars from one to the other, their scheme quickly becomes more complex with moves and counter-moves that all pay off in the last third of the film. Scott Eastwood stars in the film (making extra funnier the constant references to his character’s father), along with the always-attractive Ana de Armas and Freddie Thorp in a role meant for comic relief. Still, the stars here are the cars to be stolen, and the various action sequences that pepper the narrative. Ably directed by Antonio Negret from a production put together by notables such as Pierre Morel (of Taken fame), this is a lower-budgeted but still entertaining attempt at showing fast cars zipping by. The climactic sequence is set on the twisty roads near Marseille and includes some good moments along the way. Still, it’s not much compared to the best examples of the genre: Overdrive struggles with middling actors, bland dialogue, extremely familiar narrative engines and a tendency to fall in love with the cars it managed to bring on set. But if you’re looking for a decent-enough car thriller, this is better than many other examples: it’s entertaining enough to be worth a quiet unassuming look.