Big Driver - review

Successful mystery writer Tess Thorne is on her way to a meet and greet with fans, before giving a speech about her writing career. Along with her trusty GPS system, Tom, Tessa makes her way to the library, but ends up running late. When she finally arrives, she is greeted by Ramona Norville, the friendly organiser of the gathering who promises after her speech to give her an alternative and quicker route home.

Following the event Ramona keeps to her word and punches a new route into Tom for Tess, but along the way her car comes to a halt when a plank of wood filled with nails punctures a tyre leaving her stranded in the middle of nowhere. With no phone signal, Tess is forced to wait for a good Samaritan to stop, but when someone does, things quickly take a turn for the worse when she is subjected to a brutal attack and left for dead leaving her mentally scarred and out for revenge.

Waking up in a drainpipe along with the bodies of other women, Tess realises she’s lucky to be alive and after making her way home begins to deal with the trauma she’s experienced. Feeling unable to trust anyone, Tess takes it upon herself to fix up her physical injuries before dealing with everything else, but as she begins to put things together guided by her own lead character, she realises maybe her attack wasn’t as random as she first thought.

Based on a Stephen King novel, I was expecting quite a lot from this movie, but despite the storyline gripping me from the start, I was left ultimately disappointed and empty.

With Maria Bello as lead character Tess, this movie started off as a tense thriller, but as the story developed it quickly became obvious was what happening and left nothing to be discovered. The ending, although technically left the movie on a cliff-hanger was disappointing, making me feel I’d wasted my time watching it.