Friday 14 September 2012

"Premium Rush" (Metro 14/09/12)



Premium Rush (12A) 91 mins ***

Post-The Dark Knight Rises, the campaign to turn the likable Joseph Gordon-Levitt into a bona fide leading man shifts up a gear. The much-anticipated Looper arrives in two weeks; first, there’s this pedal-to-the-metal actioner in which Gordon-Levitt plays a cocky Manhattan bike messenger heading rapidly for a fall. Wilee (“like the coyote”) is having a bad enough day trying to salvage his relationship when a nervy client hands him an ordinary-looking envelope. Not ordinary enough, alas: soon he’s being pursued by a car containing the ferociously beep-beeping Michael Shannon, a dirty cop whose eyes are set very firmly on our boy’s package.

Savvy writer-director David Koepp – he penned Jurassic Park and Spider-Man – treats it as a live-action cartoon, scrolling the clock around and cutting to satnav-vision in a bid to maintain maximum velocity. He’s cast actors you’d want to keep up with: railing against backpacks and bad language on TV, Take Shelter’s Shannon is just having a blast here. The film’s essentially BMX Bandits with some Red Bull in the tank – that tame 12A is about right – but it’s still wise to the pleasures of watching a hero flat-foot his pursuers with a well-timed bunny-hop. If Messrs. Hoy, Storey and Pendleton hadn’t done enough to make cycling seem sexy, this might well do the trick.

Premium Rush opens nationwide today.

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