Nicholas Cage has been in some great films during his long career, most notably Leaving Las Vegas for which he won multiple awards for his performance. He's also been in some utter dross such as Ghost Rider, which was (in my opinion) justifiably panned by critics and earned Cage a Golden Raspberry for Worst Actor. He is clearly an actor capable of great performances who can recognise a brilliant script and help make a fine film, or do the complete opposite. Sadly, this is one of his weaker efforts.

One thing an action film should never be is dull and sadly Drive Angry is boring. It seems to be made by someone who finds muscle cars exciting and deserving of pride of place in a major feature film. Because of its flimsy high concept storyline, this needed a blend of snappy dialogue, memorable music, and exciting action set pieces but failed on all fronts. I didn't really care about any of the main characters so my attention and began to drift long before the halfway point; there was nothing in the third act to make it suddenly compelling so it was a minor miracle I watched until the end credits.

I think a different director would have made this obviously self-referential and shot with a Grindhouse aesthetic, perhaps throwing in some gratuitous sex and nudity for the hell of it. Patrick Lussier isn't one of those filmmakers. Nor is he a director like Michael Bay who would throw in some explosions in absence of narrative coherency.

Nicolas Cage can be a great actor, often been impressed by William Fichtner but he was also wasted here. This is a film to watch if you are morbidly curious, have nothing else to watch, and want something on in the background while you are ironing. Otherwise, give it a miss.