Premium Rush

Wilee is a bike messenger on the busy New York City streets. It's a dangerous job, one where a wrong turn could end his life. But today, it's not just the traffic that could kill him, it's the package in his bag, and the people who are after it…

Premium Rush is yet another David Koepp movie

As I mentioned while talking about Cold Storage, David Koepp is a movie-making machine, having written and/or directed a slew of films. Disclosure Day, Kimi, Black Bag, Jurassic World: Rebirth, Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, the first Tobey Maguire Spider-man, and the two least popular Indiana Jones films, Crystal Skull and Dial of Destiny. He wrote Panic Room, the first two Jurassic Parks, and also the last one with Scarlett Johansson. He is also responsible for the first Mission: Impossible movie, as well as the The Shadow, Toy Soldiers, and of course, the film that killed the Dark Universe, The Mummy. Like I said, the guy is a movie-making machine. He's a huge name. He's written over 3o feature films.

Premium Rush is one of those films.

While he technically co-wrote this one with John Kamps, it's the fifth film (out of seven so far) that he's directed, and the result is a generally fun, but middling little "chase" film that grossed about $31 million worldwide against a production budget of around $35 million.

So, not bad. Not great. Whatever.

Anyway...

Wilee was once a star student at Columbia Law School. But upon graduating, he saw a future of humdrum mediocrity unspooling before him, nothing but dead-end day in/day out office grind, just a life of being dead inside.

So he stepped away.

Or pedaled away, as it were...

Because ever since, Wilee's been putting off taking the bar exam, slumming it as New York City bicycle messenger. But from the way he rides, it’s clear Wilee isn’t just hiding from his future, he’s tempting fate, racing through New York City traffic on a fixed-gear bike with no breaks, making split-second life and death decisions, the kid's got a deathwish, but so far, he's managed to avoid ending up a smear across the pavement.

So far.

His ex-girlfriend and fellow bike messenger, Vanessa, managed to get him to quit doing bike stunts after a crash landed him in the hospital, but no matter how much she pleads, no matter how much she insist that he quit being a messenger, take the bar, and make something of himself, Wilee won’t slow down.

That’s why she’s his ex-girlfriend.

Meanwhile, Vanessa's roommate, and Wilee’s former Columbia Law classmate, Nima, has gone to see a man named Mr. Leung.

Mr. Leung is a Chinese hawaladar, a sort of informal, trust-based money broker, a man who facilitates cross-border money transfers, all without any actual physical currency being sent, and without using any of the traditional banking systems. The government hates this kind of stuff. Anyway, Nima gave Mr. Leung her life savings of $50,000 in exchange for a special ticket, a marker that is now worth 50 grand on the street. But not to worry, Mr. Leung has a little bald and bespectacled man sitting silently in the background, playing Sudoku and exchanging knowing looks occasionally with Mr. Leung. He is clearly Chekhov's Ass-kicker.

But that's for later. For now, Niman needs that ticket to be given to woman known as Sister Chen, a Chinatown-based snakehead—a peson who smuggles people into the country—as payment for Chen's gang to smuggle Nima’s son and her mother into the United States.

Unfortunately for Nima…

Detective Robert Monday is a dirty cop. He’s a gambling addict who owes a man named Mr. Lin, a Chinatown gambling den operator, a bunch of money. Monday is also a dipshit, as when Mr. Lin cuts him off, because he’s owed this money for too long, he borrows a bunch of money from a loan shark representing some Brighton Beach Russians, takes it to a rival gambling den in order to double his money, and immediately loses it all.

Now Detective Monday is in hot water, he needs to pay this debt.

Mr. Lin takes pity on Detective Monday, and tells him that he heard that Mr. Leung recently wrote a ticket for $50,000. He tells Monday, if he could recover the ticket and bring it to him, so that he could then exchange it for cash with Mr. Leung… Monday's debts would cleared.

Unfortunately for Monday, Nima spotted him coming. She ditches him, and managed to hire Wilee through his courier service to take the ticket to Sister Chen in Chinatown before Monday could catch up to her, but she didn’t tell Wilee what he was carrying, or why she hired him.

That doesn’t matter though, because when Detective Monday finds Wilee outside, and attempts to get Nima’s envelope from him, claiming there was a mistake made by an intern and the wrong package was sent, Wilee refuses. Courier service policy is that once a package is in the courier’s bag, it only comes out again for the person listed as the receiver. Besides, even though Detective Monday doesn’t identify himself as a cop, he’s obviously a huge douchebag, so fuck that guy.

Wilee rides off, with Detective Monday in pursuit.

After this, what follows is basically an extended chase through the busy streets of New York City, full of high-speed biking derring-do, interspersed with the ups and downs of New York City bike messenger love. Also, Chekhov's Ass-kicker and a bunch of Crust Punks on bikes team up to kick some pig ass, because ACAB.

In the end, the package gets delivered, and Wilee keeps on pedaling.

Premium Rush is a surprisingly fun bit of popcorn fare.

Apparently writer/director David Koepp envisioned the film's multiple elaborate chase sequences to be like the famous chase scene in William Friedkin’s film, The French Connection, but y’know… with bicycles. Your mileage may vary as to how accurately he delivers on that idea, but still, the chases are a lot of fun. I also loved how the overarching theme of the film could reasonably be said to be: “You never want to make the little quiet guy doing his puzzles in the corner have to stand up.” Also, I love how the film takes the time to highlight the eternal embarrassment of a bike cop simply because they are a bike cop. Ha! Nerds.

So yeah, it’s a fluffy good time.

And perhaps most amazingly, the characters in this movie, Premium Rush, only say the words “Premium Rush” one time. That’s it. Just one time, This is shocking to me, as I just assumed that this was going to be the type of movie where they say the film’s title all the time.

Nope. Just once.

Plus, despite somewhat unavoidably being an obvious weirdo, as he’s been acting since he was a kid—as evidenced by his hair in the first few seasons on the sit-com Third Rock From The Sun—Joseph Gordon-Levitt has talent and charisma, and he plays the role very believably, and clearly threw himself fully into it. He even got some road-rash while filming, when he crashed into the rear windshield of a taxi, and slashed his arm open, which needed 31 stitches. This is the real reason why he is wearing bandages on his arm in the movie. I appreciate the dedication. In fact, the whole cast turns in a good performance. Michael Shannon specifically, and perhaps unsurprisingly, is delightfully unhinged as Detective Monday. Really, the only character that strikes a sour note for me—and this isn’t the fault of the actress playing the part—is Vanessa, and that’s simply because the idea that a New York City working class Latina bike messenger would not only trust, but would freely talk to the cops, is just too unbelievable.

That said, one thing about this movie that sounds unrealistic, but actually isn’t, is that shortly after the film came out, a lawsuit was filed by author named Joe Quirk, claiming that the film had ripped off his 1998 novel, which is titled The Ultimate Rush. The suit claimed there were multiple similarities to Quirk's original novel, which concerned a rollerblading messenger who gets caught in an illegal insider trading ring. The suit was dismissed.

Anyway, while a bit formulaic, yes, Premium Rush is fun nonetheless, and totally worth checking out some idle afternoon.