Premium Rush
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If Hit and Run is a film Tony Scott might have seen, Premium Rush actually sounds like a title Scott would have come up with.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Wilee, the finest bicycle messenger New York City’s mean streets have ever seen. Sure, his is an industry in which you risk your life, and not for much reward — but Wilee will need to be on top of his game when his last delivery of the day turns out to be the most dangerous package of his life.
It might not exactly sound like high art but that doesn’t mean it won’t be watchable. “You’re looking for depth and profundity, this is the wrong movie,” concludes Roger Ebert. “I’m very weary of routine chase movies. There’s nothing routine about Premium Rush. Any action formula can be brought to life with enough imagination and energy.” The AV Club starts off by calling David Koepp’s movie (Koepp directed Secret Window, as well as being responsible for the screenplays for Mission: Impossible and Spider-Man) “hugely entertaining,” before ending the review with the observation that, “No matter how perilous things get, he never stops having fun—and neither does the movie.” And TIME’s Richard Corliss doesn’t disagree with his peers: “So appealing is Gordon-Levitt that, for great stretches of his new movie, I suspended my disapproval of his character and just went with the nonstop flow. He almost persuaded me that the film is, if not a premium rush, then an economy high.”
MORE: Profiling Joseph Gordon-Levitt: The Crowd-Sourced Version
NewsFeed’s Flicks Pick: If Hit and Run is half the film that True Romance was, we’ll all be satisfied. But Premium Rush looks like the connoisseur’s choice.