Premium Rush (2012): Exuberant Thrills

Bike messengers, a growing occupational subculture in cities, from San Francisco to Manhattan to London, are a distinctive group: young, fiercely independent, disdainful of office work and ‘suits’, reckless in traffic, and casually cool. The new urban action thriller, Premium Rush, successfully harnesses all of these characteristics. The energy and exuberance of its attractive young cast are undeniable and engaging, the movie’s artful structure and visceral cinematography are invigorating, and the plot, involving a desperately indebted NYPD detective who wants to steal a valuable Chiu-Chau Brotherhood (Chinese underground bank network) chit, carried by an unwitting bike messenger, is a good enough frame to make it all work.

The hero of the piece is a young man called Wilee (as in Wiley Coyote), a guy who rides with abandon and lives that way, too. Summing himself up, Wilee says, “I like to ride. Fixed gear. No brakes. Can't stop. Don't want to, either.” Wilee is portrayed by the very watcheable Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, who resembles the young Keanu Reeves, circa Speed (1994). Gordon-Leavitt has been featured in a spate of recent pictures (Inception (2010), Dark Knight Rises (2012), the upcoming Looper (2012) and Lincoln (2012)), and his star is definitely on the rise. His compadres on wheels include newcomers Dania Ramirez as Wilee’s girlfriend and Wolé Parks as his rival. Watching these three fly through the urban landscape and streets of Gotham, somehow avoiding all sorts of horrific accidents with pedestrians, taxis, delivery trucks, and whatnot is, simply put, thrilling. Wilee’s adventures begin when he picks up a “premium rush”, i.e. an urgent and important delivery, uptown at Columbia Law School and has to get it to Chinatown post haste.

No movie of this type would be complete without a good villain, and MichaelShannon handles this assignment wonderfully. His Detective Bobby Monday is by turns sweaty, smarmy, malevolent, funny and violent. Monday has a gambling problem and an anger management problem. He needs $50K fast, and discovers that Wilee has it, in the form of the above-mentioned chit. All he has to do is chase down the little twirp, which turns out to be no easy task. Wilee also has another adversary, a bike cop (Christopher Place) who chases after him for a multitude of bike riding sins, and who provides effective comic relief.

This is a fun movie: exciting, entertaining, and even interesting - for giving the rest of us a little insight into a couple of communities we know little about: hard core urban bikers and Chinese underground “banking”. Like many action-oriented pictures, it’s probably best seen on the big screen (or a big screen TV).  Rated PG-13, Premium Rush seems to be aimed at a teen audience, but 45 years beyond that age bracket, I liked it just fine.

In current release.