"You play against me, pal, you're gonna lose. You win, you make some money. I win, you're gonna do fifteen years. How 'bout it, driver?"
— The Detective
The Driver is a 1978 crime/car chase film directed by Walter Hill and starring Ryan O'Neal, Bruce Dern, and Isabelle Adjani. The film is also notable for its impressive car chases, its no-frills style of filmmaking, and its rarely speaking, unnamed titular character.
The 2011 film Drive and its blond, taciturn protagonist were heavily inspired by this film, as was the PlayStation classic Driver, whose notoriously hard Tutorial Mission was based on a scene in this film.
The main character is the Trope Maker of the trope The Driver.
This film provides examples of:
- Art Imitates Art: The major visual influence on the film was the works of artist Edward Hopper.
- Badass Driver: The main character is hired by criminals specifically because he has excellent driving skills, which will be necessary to elude police. One band of robbers insist on a demonstration, so the driver proceeds to navigate a parking garage and shear off sprinkler valves with the front fenders, yet not touch the adjacent concrete pillars.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: The Driver is a dangerous criminal and works for some pretty rotten people. The Detective and the morally grayer techniques that he uses to catch or trap him aren't exactly paragons of justice. Neither is Isabelle Adjani's gambler character.
- Chase Scene: Several truly epic ones, filling most of the classic tropes including cars in blind alleys, car chase shoot-outs, dodge by braking, getaway driver, gone behind the bend, just keep driving, lost in a crowd (of cars), pedal to the metal shot, ramp jump, police road block, slo-mo big air, and vehicular sabotage. Strangely this movie avoids the trope of large scale police chases. Only 2 cruisers at the beginning and the 3 detectives give chase and barely keep up with the hero.
- Doesn't Like Guns: The Driver has a vocal dislike of guns and distrusts crooks Glasses and Teeth because of their use of guns. He is, however, willing to use one when he absolutely needs to.
- Game of Chicken: The Driver does this in both the opening and the final Chase Scene. In both cases the other cars yields and crashes.
- Good Is Not Nice: The Detective is a giant asshole, but he is trying to catch crooks.
- Hassle-Free Hotwire: The film opens with The Driver stealing a car by crossing two wires. Although he does also connect the power wire to the "run" wire after starting it to keep it running.
- Hero Antagonist: The antagonist of the film is the Detective trying to put the Driver behind bars.
- Homage: The film pays homage to Le Samouraï, with several scenes in The Driver visually playing out almost the exact same as scenes from the latter film.
- Jerkass: The Detective treats his fellow cops like shit, and is smug and condescending to everyone he meets.
- Job Title: The Driver is a getaway driver.
- Kick the Dog: After Teeth is done interrogating the Connection for information about the Driver and where he stashed the money from his robbery, he immediately shoots her dead for no reason other than to show how evil he is.
- Laser-Guided Karma: A mild one, but earlier in the movie, The Detective gives a cop a condescending speech about how the cop is making mistakes and he (the Detective) will make him a better officer. At the climax of the movie, when the Detective seemly captures the Driver with a bag that is later revealed to be empty, thus allowing the Driver to go free, this happens in front of the same cop who then proceeds to gives the Detective a noticeable look of "you were saying".
- Limited Wardrobe: Looks like a set rule: One outfit per character.
- Nameless Narrative: Not one character has a name in this movie, and are all addressed by their occupation or description.
- No Name Given: No one is named in the film, and the credits only give them names related to their occupations.
- Noodle Incident: The Player did something in the past that the Detective describes as a nasty little scrape that got swept under the rug.
- Off on a Technicality: Justified in the end. When the Driver reveals the bag is empty, even though the Detective has circumstantial evidence against the Driver, without the money, he doesn't have anything that would guarantee a conviction, so any trial would only waste taxpayer dollars.
- The Quiet One: The driver is a man of few words - 350 in all.
- Rabid Cop: The Detective smacks around Glasses and throws hot coffee on the Driver, knowing that they can't even defend themselves or without getting into serious trouble. The Detective also forces Glasses to commit a robbery with the Driver so that the Detective can bust him.
- Re-Cut: Walter Hill's original cut was two hours long and included one additional action (but not chase) scene, and even though for years even the VHS tapes had said the length was over two hours, Hill has denied that this version was ever his intended cut and categorically stated that the existence of a longer director's cut is an urban myth. The US DVD includes an introductory sequence that the studio forced Hill to shoot to clarify who the characters are as a deleted scene, but this was dropped from all theatrical prints.
- Smug Snake: The Detective is very arrogant in his attitude towards people and seems to look down on everyone.
- Sparing the Final Mook: The climactic car chase has the Driver pursue the Teeth into a warehouse, where they conduct a cat-and-mouse game. When Teeth makes a break for the exit, he gets shunted into a railway bay where his car is disabled. The Driver shoots Teeth for killing his pretty accomplice, but spares his driver, the Kid, who'd done an admirable job trying to evade pursuit.The Kid: I'm just the driver.The Driver: Go home.
- Stealing from Thieves: When the Driver has completed the heist and eluded pursuit by both the police and the double-crossing punks, the Detective thinks he's finally caught this outlaw as he's carrying a valet case full of money, and makes the arrest... but the case is empty, so there's no incriminating evidence.Driver: Looks like we both got swindled.The Detective: Looks like we both got ripped off... by the exchange man.
- Stocking Mask: Three of the robbers (Credited as Glasses, Teeth, and Fingers) wear these during their robberies.
- The Stoic: The Driver shows almost no emotion throughout the movie.
- Too Dumb to Live: When the Driver has Teeth cornered at gunpoint and tells him to surrender, he decides to slowly pull out his gun to shoot him, which leads to him immediately getting shot by the Driver.
- Trespassing to Talk: Teeth breaks into the Connection's home and waits for her to get home to threaten her to reveal where the Driver is staying and where he has hidden the money. After learning this he shoots her.
- Visual Pun: In the end when the Detective's controversial gambit has failed, he tries to hand the empty cash bag over to his minion, but the minion ignores him. The Detective is quite literally left holding the bag.