Premium Rush is a 2012 action movie starring Joseph Gordon Levitt and Michael Shannon. Most people have never heard of this film, and I seriously think they are missing out. In this post, I will go into what makes this movie appealing to me as a person, why I think this film should get a bit more love, and what sticks out to me in my latest rewatch.
For those of you who have seen this film, I’d be interested to know what your opinions are; did you like it? Have you thought about it in the eight years since it came out? If you haven’t seen it recently, what parts of this film do you remember?
Full disclosure, I actually own this movie. I watched it around the time it came out and enjoyed the hell out of it. Over the past decade or so, my interest in bikes tends to wax and wane a bit, but something about this movie always makes me want to jump in the saddle and go for a long ride. Seriously, its got nearly everything; bikes racing cars, bikes racing people, bikes racing other bikes, trick riding to get away from cops… Its just a real fun movie if you are into this stuff. If you haven’t jumped on a bike since you’ve gotten your learners permit, you may not get it, but this film takes something I as an amateur cyclist truly enjoy and it takes to a new level. It may not have the widespread appeal of “Fast and Furious” or “The Expendables”, but for someone who enjoys this activity, this movie as like a fun romp.
But before we get too far into this, I think it makes sense to talk through the cast. Let’s start with Joseph Gordon Levitt, playing a bike messenger named Wilee. I don’t know what it is about JGL, but he seems to find a way to elevate whatever movie he is in from a dumb action movie to something that actually seems like it is something more. Honestly, I cannot think of a movie he is in that I don’t enjoy. Looper; great film. 50/50; Seth Rogen tries to take the reigns, but JGL brings it back. 500 Days of Summer; he is definitely the bad guy but still a lot of fun to watch as he creeps out Zooey Deschanel. Snowden; don’t even get me started on his performance. I love watching him act, and this movie is absolutely not an exception.
Next is Michael Shannon. I’ll be honest, I cannot list a lot of movies this guy is in off-hand. I feel like I see him all the time, but his roles are never front-and-center. I know he plays General Zod in Man of Steel, and more recently was in Knives Out, but nothing else immediately comes to mind. (IMdb shows he played Elvis Presley in “Elvis & Nixon”, which really makes me want to watch that film.) From what I’ve seen, he is a pretty good character actor. If I do see him in a role, he seems to be playing a guy about two seconds away from losing his cool. This movie is has him playing a dirty cop, who literally says that is his problem in the film. For what the role is, he does it well.
Honestly, those two actors get MOST of the screen time, but there IS a woman who might get about 15%. Dania Ramirez plays the female lead and love interest, also a bike messenger. She does the role well enough for this film; the only place I remember seeing her outside of this was a season of Heroes. She definitely wasn’t going to win an Oscar for this film, but is fine here. I really do not remember seeing any of the actors in any other projects, but generally everyone was good enough in this one for what it was.
When this movie starts, it gets moving right away. The opening shot is JGL riding a bike through busy New York City streets, talking about how he is too cool for a real job, a multi-speed bike, or brakes. Right from the start, we see how bike messengers have their own culture, more interested in the thrill of their day-to-day life of weaving in and out of traffic than getting a job where they are less likely to get hit by a taxicab. In this world, cyclists are obviously the good guys while those in cars are clearly the bad. Honestly, this movie frames the bicycling experience pretty well; as much as cars cuss out cyclists, cyclists also look at cars as the problem.
It actually takes that a bit further… Michael Shannon’s dirty cop character drives a car, chases down cyclists to run them off the road, and straight up kills a guy. However, a bike cop tries to chase down our cyclist heroes, and he is treated like a guy who is just trying to do his job. Basically, this movie doesn’t have cops as the bad guys, which is a refreshing thing to see in 2020. Rather, it has the main antagonist be a guy who just happens to be a cop (and doesn’t ride a bike).
The plot really doesn’t have a lot there; its primarily an excuse to do cool bike scenes. I do enjoy the fact that it is not a “save the city” type of scope, opting more for the bike messenger’s trying to do the right thing to reunite a woman and her child. There is a bit of Chinese mob type stuff that is hinted, but again, a lot of that is just sort of logical leaps that need to be made so the movie can happen. This isn’t meant as a knock on the film; sometimes it is just fun to watch cool action scenes on bikes.
It has a lot of cool visual tools that it uses well. One highlight that pops up quite a bit is a top down GPS shot detailing the distance these guys need to cover on their routes. I think it works pretty well. Also, the slow-motion vision of different possible paths Wilee can take through a busy intersection looks pretty good, despite some pretty shabby CGI that I’ll give a pass.
To summarize, this is a really small-scale action movie that I really enjoy. It isn’t a superhero flick or an 80’s style beat-em-up, but this is a type of film that i truly think is missing from the past few years. I cannot really think of something to compare this to in recent years; its not a shot at a franchise, its just a simple movie that is fun to watch and is pretty well made. I think studios need to make these type of films more often, because it is honestly a breath of fresh air when compared to most movies made these days. This might not be a movie you drop everything to watch, but if you can find a copy on the cheap I definitely recommend spending the hour and a half.
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