The Driver (2020)

New Thai-shot zombie picture THE DRIVER gets a digital and DVD release from Lionsgate UK.

There's been a zombie apocalypse. Somewhere in Thailand survivors have banded together to build a community walled in with the usual wooden fencing, barbed wire and watchtowers. Bandits attack and the place is destroyed. The camp's security chief is known in the credits only as The Driver (Mark Dacascos) presumably because one of his jobs is driving those found guilty of crimes within the commune out to a gut-munching death. He survives, as does his daughter, and together they set off in his car to look for legendary zombie-free paradise Haven.

The premise plus the poster art suggests we should be in for 1971's VANISHING POINT with zombies (and wouldn't that be great?) or something along the lines of a Brian Trenchard-Smith 1980s Ozsploitation road movie (which would also be marvellous). Imagine it - a known action star (Mark Dacascos from JOHN WICK 3) in the lead, tearing down the highway running down zombies and being beset by MAD MAX-style marauders as explosions risk him and his little girl ending up being blasted into the tarmac.

But oh dear it's not. For a movie with that title THE DRIVER completely wastes its central idea, taking ages to get to the road bit of the story and then it's the same bit of road (or at least it looks like it from the scenery) over and over again combined with lots of safe careful driving. Then The Driver teaches his daughter how to drive. No montage, no clips, no hair-raising episodes, and it's all done in real time. He does the same with teaching her how to shoot. Aside from the attack on the compound it's all so dull, filmed with the air of someone who doesn't care & just wants to fill 90 minutes. The only extra is a 12 minute making of.  

Now here's the interesting part. Apparently this is the third part of a trilogy. The first, DEAD EARTH (retitled from TWO OF US) has yet to see a UK release, and the second hasn't actually been shot yet. One begins to suspect the thought processes of a Thai Richard Driscoll at work here. Expect THE DRIVER to turn up under a different title at some point, possibly with new footage edited in to make it better. Except it won't be.

THE DRIVER is out from Lionsgate UK on Digital Download on Monday 12th October 2020 and DVD on Monday 19th October 2020