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Time Out New York Project: Issue #873, August 23-September 5, 2012 (ONLINE ONLY)
★★★☆☆
Dir. David Koepp. 2012. PG-13. 91mins. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Shannon, Dania Ramirez.
True to his Looney Tunes-esque first name, NYC bike messenger Wilee (Gordon-Levitt) feels the need for speed. He’s the kind of guy who’d rather narrowly avoid rush hour side-swipes than submit to suit-and-tie spiritual oblivion. His sixth sense at avoiding close calls with taxicabs, pedestrians and other potentially life-ending obstacles is near Jedi Master levels. But this hipster Padawan faces his greatest challenge after being tasked with the Columbia University-to-Chinatown delivery of a hot-potato envelope that a crooked cop (Shannon) will stop at nothing to get his hands on.
House-Spielberg screenwriter turned occasional director David Koepp (Stir of Echoes; Ghost Town) has tons of fun tricking out this relentlessly paced B-movie. All the bike stunts have a tangible physicality — Wilee’s multi-level escape from a police storage compound is an especially thrilling setpiece — while most of the digital effects are reserved for inventive Google Maps-meets-Grand Theft Auto asides that hilariously illustrate our hero’s peril-avoiding thought process. As long as Koepp keeps the focus on his two leads the fun is infectious: Gordon-Levitt pedals with ingratiating Wild One attitude, and Shannon adds another indelible characterization to his rogues’ gallery of bug-eyed lunatics. But after the story takes a cloyingly sentimental turn, this lean-and-mean thriller becomes bathetically bloated. Just a few spokes short of a wheel, guys.—Keith Uhlich