Back in 1986, Kevin Bacon starred in Quicksilver, a movie that really for the first time brought major mainstream attention to the life and lifestyle of bike messengers, those brave souls making their living in major metropolitan areas by zipping in between cars and through intersections at breakneck speeds to make cross-town deliveries in predictable time frames. Back then, before the advent of fax machines, email, cloud computing, and every other form of instant electronic delivery that’s come along in the last 20 years, bike messengers in New York City alone, where Quicksilver took place, numbered in the thousands. Whether you loved them or hated them — and many NYC drivers and pedestrians HATED them — they were a fixture in everyday big city life.
In today’s world, their numbers have shrunk, but bike messengers haven’t disappeared entirely, and technology hasn’t been all bad for their industry. Enter Premium Rush, a film that certainly can claim ancestry from Quicksilver through its depiction of daredevil urban cycle couriers and the lives they lead, but updates the formula by visually incorporating the technological means through which today’s messengers go about their business. Cell phones, earpieces, and especially GPS play a big role in Premium Rush, almost as much a role as the cyclists themselves and the plot that moves them along.
In Rush, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (The Dark Knight Rises, Inception) plays Wilee, a cycling purist who, despite his use of a fixed-gear, brakeless bike and his seemingly reckless style of riding, is acknowledged by his peers (well, most of them) as the best in his service at what he does. As the film opens, we see Wilee literally flying through the air and landing hard on pavement after he hits the back of a cab at full speed and his body ricochets off of the cab’s rear windshield. The story then rewinds an hour and a half to before Wilee gets the delivery that’s at the heart of the film’s plot, and the audience gets a chance to get some context for the collision they just saw. It’s a storytelling technique that’s used often in the film and to good effect–as in real life for bike messengers, everything in the film is time-sensitive, and the prevalence of the clock showing up on screen adds to the tension building as the story rolls on.
On a day when he’s upset his fellow courier girlfriend Vanessa (Daria Ramirez) and has to deal with a rival (Wolé Parks) trying to take advantage of their troubles, Wilee picks up an envelope from Vanessa’s roommate Nima (Jamie Chung) that has to be delivered to an address in Chinatown “premium rush.” Not long after he gets the envelope, he’s confronted by Detective Monday (Michael Shannon), a bad cop who needs what’s in the envelope to get himself out of some trouble he’s in with people even more dangerous than he is. Wilee refuses: “Yeah, thing is once it goes in the bag, it gotta stay in the bag,” he says glibly, not knowing yet that Monday’s a cop. Naturally, Monday doesn’t take “no” for an answer, and thus begins a chase through Manhattan’s traffic-clogged streets with the clock ticking for both Wilee and Monday, and lives both in and out of the city on the line.
It’s a relatively simple set up and a familiar formula, but that familiarity doesn’t at all take away from how enjoyable this film is from start to finish. Director David Koepp, working from a script he wrote with frequent collaborator John Kamp, keeps things in high gear by having his actors on their bikes and zipping through traffic for much of the film’s 91 minute running time. Koepp uses Google Earth-style overhead city views and MapQuest-style route plotting as transitions between scenes–every time Wilee looks up a new destination on his phone, we’re shown that destination and the distance he’ll have to travel, as well as the current time. As gimmicky as that technique sounds, it works well for the film’s sense of urgency while also paying heed to the GPS-reliant habits of today’s smartphone-savvy movie audiences.
As for the actors, they do their best with what they’re given. Michael Shannon, who you’ll see in a much bigger villain role in next year’s Superman film reboot Man of Steel, clearly has great fun playing the Bad Lieutenant-esque Detective Monday. With his rumpled suit and perpetually stressed-out look, he clashes well with Gordon-Levitt’s Wilee, a charming, quick-witted guy who graduated from law school but is far more terrified of ever having to wear a suit and sit behind a desk than he is of getting killed on his bike. Their scenes together do just as much to put you on the edge of your seat as all those hairpin turns through intersections full of moving cars do, and that speaks volumes for the talent each actor brings to the table here.
But don’t look for too much deep characterization here. Premium Rush is a film that keeps its scope limited in order to tell a simple, yet compelling story with urgency and more than a little bit of humor, and the strategy works. Amidst the glut of new releases at the box office this weekend — three major films, including another one involving speed and chases, Hit & Run — you could do a whole lot worse than spending your ticket money on Premium Rush. At the very least, it goes by fast.
Score: 3.5 out of 5
Premium Rush
Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Shannon, Dania Ramirez, Jaime Chung. Directed by David Koepp.
Running Time: 91 minutes
Rated PG-13 for some violence, intense action sequences and language.