OVERDRIVE

France, Belgium, US, 2017, 93 minutes, Colour.
Scott Eastwood, Freddy Thorp, Ana de Armas, Gaia Weiss, Simon Abkarian, Clemens Schick.
Directed by Antonio Negret.

This is not a particularly good action film. It is full of the fast and furious which most reviewers noted. Actually, the title of Overdrive could have been very well used in one of the Fast and Furious films. So, it is the car film that you have when you haven’t got the popular franchise.

The setting is France, around the city of Marseille. Scott Eastwood and Freddy Thorp portray two half-brothers who are skilled in stealing cars. They are seen in plenty of sequences exercising this particular talent. Scott Eastwood is in love with Stephanie (Ana de Armas) and glamorous model in real life, Gaia Weiss, portraying a thief in Marseilles, Devon, who becomes attracted to the other brother why is not immediately evident.

The dialogue is not particularly persuasive at all – and relies on some ominous silences as well.

The brothers are involved in an elaborate stealing of a car, plenty of detail, plenty of fast driving, plenty of chases, plenty of danger. This comes to the attention of a crime magnate who sees himself as controlling Marseilles. His played by the excellent actor Simon Abkarian, who featured in French and American films. He summons the two young men, terrorises them, and employs them to steal cars from a rival to his Lordship of Marseille, a German played by Clemens Schick. He is sinister himself and also has his focus. Both crime Lords are particularly wealthy, love hoarding vintage cars.

The two brothers and the two women become involved in a lot of double dealing, seeming to be working from for Abkarian and then making contact with Schick. Whatever the truth, and the rivalry between the two gang Lords which comes to a head, the brothers enrol the assistance of a whole lot of characters in Marseilles, as well as an expert on bombs.

Plenty of explosions, gates blown open, the gang all taking a car each and driving down the highway – and the audience try to work out who was working for whom and why.

Scott Eastwood resembles his father very closely – and this is a film that Clint may have contemplated acting in in the 1950s. Freddy Thorp is rather unpersuasive as the half brother.

With its French setting, and with the focus on vehicles and speed, it will remind audiences of the Transporter series the other car action shows from directors like Pierre Morel (who was a producer of this film), Luc Besson and Louis Letterier. The present director is from Columbia.