The Driver

Twentieth Century Fox | Release Date: July 28, 1978

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

56	METASCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 13 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

100

Craig Williams

The Driver is a film of types and trends; a cinematic expression of our basest narrative impulses. Directed with remarkable economy, the seasoned Hill keeps everything as tight as possible. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

A combination of brilliantly edited car chases and existential thriller which recalls the sombreness of Melville and the spareness of Leone in a context which is the 'classical' economy of directors like Hawks and Walsh. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)

The sparse story of the struggle of the two men with their obsessions, and with each other, skillfully creates a mood that is hard to shake after the ending credits. The car chases are breathtaking. Read full review

Glenn Heath Jr.

A visceral symphony of screeching tires and crushing metal. Read full review

David Ansen

As ludicrous as the dialogue by screenwriter/director Walter Hill may be, the film's visual scheme is hypnotic. Dark, moody and muscular, its style gets under your skin even if your brain rebels. [21 Aug 1978, p.66]

Roger Ebert

All of this could have been nice and juicy if Walter Hill had done a few more things with his screenplay, such as made the characters into people. Read full review

EmpireWilliam Thomas

A fair-to-middling auto-noir with a hole in the middle roughly the size of its leading man’s head. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

Director Walter Hill and stunt coordinator Everett Creach have engineered a number of car chases and they are fabulous, if you like car chases. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

While we can readily identify these characters, we can't identify with them simply because Hill never bothers to tell us what makes them tick. Read full review

Gary Arnold

The Driver is a chase melodrama abstracted to the verge of pointlessness. [31 July 1978, p.B1]

Robert Martin

Perhaps Hill simply failed in his attempt to make of The Driver something more than an action picture. The trouble is that he doesn't do enough to elevate the film above the level of the genre. [29 July 1978]

Pauline Kael

Hill attempted to stylize gangster characters and conventions, and although he succeeded in the action sequences, which have a near-abstract visual power, the stylized characters, with their uninflected personalities, flatten the movie out.

Vincent Canby

Written and directed by Walter Hill, who once wrote and directed a good movie, Hard Times, with Charles Bronson. This one is not good. It is Awful Movie. It is Pretentious Movie. It is Silly Movie. It talks just like this. Read full review