Every once in a while, something comes along that shatters your expectations by such a great margin that it completely takes you by surprise.
It could be a burger you thought was too cheap to be good that you suddenly tried and now eat every day, but now you’re kind of getting tired of it because you probably shouldn’t live off Shack burgers. Or it could be how absolutely awful your fantasy football team is this year even though you vehemently brush off your friends’ insults with comments like “dude, Chris Johnson is going to have a great year” or “seriously, once Kenny Britt recovers from the knee injury and serves his suspension for his DUI, he’s going to go off.” Apologies to the non-football fans; I promise I’m about to make a point, and the point is this: “Premium Rush” was another moment just like those, when something completely shatters your expectations for it.
Yes, this is the bike movie you saw the trailer for when you saw the Dark Knight Rises, and I phrase it like that because I’ll forever assume 100 percent of the American population saw that movie. Now, if you are anything like me, or most people I know at least, you probably thought a movie about a guy riding a bike around New York would end up being a total flop. The good news is: you were almost right. “Premium Rush” is currently behind such cinematic marvels as “ParaNorman” and “The Odd Life of Timothy Green” in weekend box office scores. It did, however, manage to beat out “2016: Obama’s America” (which just saw its seventh week in theaters) by a whopping $60,000. Yeah, “Premium Rush” flopped. And I need to stop picking on “ParaNorman,” it actually looked like an endearing children’s movie.
Putting that aside though, “Premium Rush” was actually a pretty decent movie. I know that’s not exactly a shining endorsement; I’m standing in a grey area so large that even Christopher Nolan couldn’t write a script that ended with me finding a way out, but “Premium Rush” was strangely enjoyable. It might have been the movie’s incredibly low expectations, but I actually sat through the credits and reflected on how stunningly mediocre it was. It wasn’t just a stupid bike movie; it felt like more than that. The story was well-written and you learn to love Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character, Wilee, and his care-free, “live life with no brakes” attitude as he gets caught up in everything happening around him. The movie was, and I hate to simplify it to only this, but it was fun. It was just fun to watch.
The movie begins by introducing Wilee and fellow bike messengers, Vanessa (Dania Ramirez) and Manny (Wolé Parks), and their hilarious manager, Raj (Aasif Mandvi, “The Daily Show”). Wilee is tasked with picking up and delivering a simple envelope, but he doesn’t know that this envelope is about to take him on the ride of his life as he navigates his way past a crooked cop (Michael Shannon), taxis, pedestrians and my personal favorite character, the bicycle cop (Christopher Place). The riding scenes are actually much more visually interesting than you would expect and are highlighted by excellent camera work, which helps to really capture the feeling of speeding down busy New York streets. The plot as a whole keeps you interested the entire way through by being suspenseful enough to keep you caring, but also being campy enough to keep everything lighthearted. So if you’re scrambling for date ideas, this movie could be your savior.
Overall, “Premium Rush” deserves an endearing 6 Gordon-Levitts out of 10 — which is pretty good. It is a movie about a guy riding a bike, after all.