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70s,

Walter Hill's classic THE DRIVER is coming to cinemas and Home Release in 4K

Walter Hill's classic THE DRIVER is coming to cinemas and Home Release in 4K

Whoa! StudioCanal has restored and remastered Walter Hill's 70s neo-noir crime classic THE DRIVER in 4K and before its home release in December, it will be screened in cinemas from 11 November.

Getting to see The Driver in 4K on big screen is very good news as I am a huge fan of Walter Hill’s body of work and the man himself. His films certainly contributed to my love of the medium. Some of his films are favourites of mine and timeless greats like; The Streetfighter (1975), The Driver (1978), The Warriors (1979), Streets of Fire (1984), Red Heat (1988), Johnny Handsome (1989) and the first episode of Deadwood (2004).

Hill’s reputation for making hard-edged gritty action films starring tough guys seems to have overshadowed his remarkable storytelling proficiency. He made his bones starting out as an oil roustabout during school and later construction work before shifting gear into film. It’s exactly that kind of real-world experience that informs grounded characters and plots that are engaging.

Working as second direction allowed him to learn the craft of film-making while he honed his writing skills, selling his first screenplay Lloyd Williams and His Brother in 1969 it never made it to screen (in its entirety). In the early years, he worked with Golden Era pioneering greats like Sam Peckinpah and John Huston which helped form his narrative voice. He has pointed out that he can write in many styles but has a preference for his own unique brand of storytelling.

He has written 12 of the 21 feature films he had made across multiple genres including westerns, military, crime, science fiction, music(als), buddy films, comedy and science fiction. He also created a TV series, Produced TV Series as well as made many, many TV films. Hill was instrumental in getting Ridley Scott’s Alien made, when his production company picked it up ensuring Fox's involvement and was indeed involved in writing and producing some of the earlier films of the franchise.

The man is a living legend and should be celebrated now.



I saw The Driver at an age when it challenged my notions of good and bad. Very reductive reasoning but the way protagonists and antagonists were portrayed on screen previously for me was not as complex as Ryan O'Neal’s and Bruce Dern’s characters.

The Driver - Ryan O’Neal as The Driver, Bruce Dern as The Detective

As criminal or hard-boiled as Hill’s protagonists are, they follow a code that can be traced back from Akira Kurosawa through Jean-Pierre Melville's works, and as overused as this trope is these days, its never delivered through an expository manner rather stoic action - their creed could be “deeds not words”.

Perhaps it is, not such a mystery what Hill’s influences are: as a kid he was hampered by life-threatening asthma and whilst housebound he developed a fascination with reading, comics, radio serials, and physical activities in which he could not partake. He developed an interest in stories about adventure and survival like Jack London's tales. He had a love of all genres of film, particularly westerns and mysteries, he also feels that action films are essentially what film is about and has cited George Stevens' Shane (1953) as one of his favourite films from his youth.

The Driver was Hill's third original story to make it to screen and his second film as director, as my father once said if you live long enough you’ll see everything at least twice and Hill’s The Driver is hugely influential and strands of it can be openly seen in modern film like Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, Quentin Tarantino's earlier works (Tarantino has explained that Hill was a hero of his growing up and that his screenplay for The Streetfighter changed the way he saw & presumably wrote screenplays) and Edgar Wright's Baby Driver. It’s no coincidence that Hill has a cameo role in Baby Driver.

The Driver - Isabelle Adjani as The Player

No one seems to talk about Hill’s stylistic influence on Michael Mann’s work, notably his seminal 1981 Thief, which set a direction that he thrived in - also the relationship between Ryan O'Neal’s Driver and Bruce Dern’s Detective bears marked similarities to the relationship between Al Pacino's Vincent Hanna and Robert De Niro's Neil McCauley from his 1995 heist masterpiece Heat.

Mann & Hill are actually good friends - so much so that back in the day, Mann had no intention of directing Heat, and after completing the screenplay he offered it to Hill. For whatever reason - he passed on it.

I can’t help but wonder what Heat and Alien would have looked like had Hill steered the ship. I love both of those films and it would be interesting to see their world's explored in a meta way.

The Driver - Ryan O’Neal as The Driver

Hill wrote The Driver influenced by his experience working on Bullit and was written for Steve McQueen, who had worked with him previously on Norman Jewison’s The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) & Peter Yates’ Bullitt (1968) - Hill was an “Assistant Director” on both films and McQueen starred in Sam Peckinpah’s terrific The Getaway (1972) adapted from Jim Thompson’s novel by Walter Hill.

Sadly (or not) McQueen passed on it, as at the time did not want to make another car-based film. Film lore is rife with tales of major stars that almost worked with Hill but inversely his oeuvre speaks for itself and he has always managed to attract stellar talent to all of his projects, with his nuanced characters and fundamental, pared-downed plot lines. Most with the thread of his favourite genre running through them - the Western.

Even in The Driver Ryan O'Neal’s character, The Driver is pejoratively nicknamed “The Cowboy Desperado” by Bruce Dern’s The Detective.

I recently listened to Hill’s audiobook The Cowboy Iliad: A Legend Told In The Spoken Word, a spellbinding short tale about gunslingers in the west. It’s too short but is a wry fun experience and case study for Hill's storytelling. Shortly after that, I watched Hill’s latest film Dead for a Dollar (2022) with another compliment of outstanding cast, which includes: the returning Willem Dafoe, Christoph Waltz, Rachel Brosnahan, and Warren Burke - who almost steals the show- no easy feat when you share the screen with Willem Dafoe & Christoph Waltz.

I was curious to see how Walter Hill would roll out a western in this post-Tarantino revisionist world. As it turns out pretty awesomely as he bridges old west sepia-toned vistas with a western story that pops and dialogue infused with modern sensibilities and bullwhips.

I couldn’t help but watch the film with the spectre of Hill’s narration explaining events as they happened which really added to my enjoyment as Hill’s storytelling was front and centre. So much so that I would be very happy to watch the continuing adventures of the bounty hunter Max Borlund &/or buffalo soldier Sergeant Poe and my renewed interest in Hill’s works has me keen to re-visit his extensive body of work.

The Driver - 1976 Pontiac Firebird chase

It seems that all of Walter Hill’s heroes are cowboys and I can't wait to watch The Driver again. Least of all as this new release features extras that include a new interview with Walter Hill and an exclusive masterclass recorded at Reims Festival 2022.

My only criticism of this release so far is that the artwork really doesn't convey any of the essence of the film or the tone Hill is known for.

The Driver 4K Release Poster

THE ESTABLISHING SHOT: WALTER HILL'S CLASSIC THE DRIVER IS COMING TO CINEMAS AND HOME RELEASE IN 4K