The Pleasure Drivers (2006)

This is one of those bad movies that has several good things in it, but the filmmakers obviously never recognized what those good things were. So, it has roughly the same effect as that hot 16 year old in high school that was always flirting but never went all the way. It teases you just long enough to make your eventual disappointment all the more frustrating.Daphne (Lauren Holly) is a woman who looks like she's been ridden hard and put away wet. She's taking care of Tom (Angelo Spizzirri), a younger man with very debilitating medical problems. Tom's father, the Reverend Ethol, is supposed to be paying for Tom's care…but he's not. Daphne goes down to the Reverend's church/cult to demand some money. She only gets the brush off from the Reverend's right hand man (Billy Zane, who really should be acting in better movies than this. The guy was in Titanic, for Pete's sake!) So, Daphne takes an aluminum baseball bat, clonks a couple of guys in the head and kidnaps Tom's sister Casey for ransom.While that's going on, we also watch the marriage of Bill (Angus MacFadyen) and Alexis (Deena Dill) blow apart. Bill is one of those stereotypical psychology professors who is so emotionally repressed, his wife has an affair with another woman. Not because Alexis is actually gay, but she's just so desperate to get some sort of reaction out of Bill. She doesn't get it, and Bill ends up meeting Faruza (Lacey Chabert). Faruza has been attending Bill's classes and is so infatuated with him that just listening to him talk gets her sexually excited.It turns out that Daphne, Tom, Casey, Bill and Faruza all end up at the same hotel in the middle of the desert. There they are joined by Marcy (Jill Bennett), a raven-tressed, lesbian hitwoman who just got dumped by her girlfriend and has been hired by the church/cult to take care of their little Daphne problem. Wacky hijinks ensue, like an episode of Scooby-Doo mixed with Reservoir Dogs.There are a couple of good things in The Pleasure Drivers, but you'll miss one if you blink and the other just goes completely off the rails. The first good thing is a flash of genuine depth in Daphne. Before the character becomes a complete moron to serve the Almighty Plot Hammer, Lauren Holly is able to show some real inner conflict in this woman. She truly does want to take care of Tom and needs money for that, but she also wants a lot of money from the church/cult because she just wants a lot of money. There are instances where Holly lets us see primitive greed struggling with idiotic nobility in Daphne and it's somewhat entrancing.The other good thing in this film is the relationship, such as it is, between Bill and Faruza. The repressed man and the liberated woman is one of the all-time movie clichés, but it really works here. Primarily that's because Angus MacFadyen goes beyond cliché with Bill. He creates a man who looks attractive and functional on the surface. It's not until you get to know Bill that you find out he's so alienated from his own emotions and his own life that he's constantly analyzing himself and others into a tape recorder he keeps with him. MacFadyen really captures the disturbed unwillingness to interact with others that fools women into thinking it's niceness and vulnerability. Lacey Chabert also hits the mark with Faruza being willfully blind to how she uses sexual aggressiveness to wall off feelings she doesn't want to deal with.But we never see enough of Daphne's depth and the story basically abandons the Bill/Faruza dynamic so it can get to the ironic and nihilistically hip violence. The movie also treats lesbian assassin Marcy as though she is a lot more meaningful than she actually is. She's much closer to plot device than human being, but the filmmakers seem to think there's something significant about her without ever doing anything significant with her. Tom is also wildly inconsistent throughout the entire film. He goes from being mentally spastic to acutely aware, physically weak to personally capable, emotionally crippled to stoicly resolved and back and forth for no reason except the script requires it. Throw in a plot that's not much more complicated than See Spot Run, Daphne having a handgun that must have come from an old time Western because it never needs to be reloaded and a double ending that pathetically clutches at seriousness, and you've got a movie that thoroughly crushes any hopes that might have been raised by its few good qualities.We also get to see Angus MacFadyn naked. Now, anyone who watches movies with a critical eye can recognize the terrible way actresses are exploited when it comes to nudity. And while I'll admit I can enjoy some gratuitous disrobing, I appreciate women who don't want to do that and applaud filmmakers who resist it. But the modern conceit of not having naked women and instead splashing bare man ass across the screen has got to stop. Maybe at one point it was funny and a bit subversive, but now it's so played out and artificial. It's become something that independent movies do only because it's something that other independent movies have done.The Pleasure Drivers does turn awfully stupid toward the end, with two final scenes that are so misplaced it's as though pages from two other movies got stabled to the end of this script. Aside from that, it's not altogether horrible. If you give it a look, it might click with you. But if you've watched the first 15 minutes and you're not enjoying it, you can go ahead and turn it off because it won't be getting any better.

This is an interesting mixture for a flick; a few funny scenes, mostly subtle humor, throw in some action, odd theme-based characters , and enough intriguing content that you can think about it for a while. Not the typical vapid thrill.A major theme of the movie is explained early on when the professor reviews the concepts of the Id, Superego, and Ego while he drives with the nympho. The description sets up the main conflict of the movie, between the Id and the Superego, which ends up affecting the Ego. There is also a subtext regarding religion and a conflict between Ego and religion. The death of the cult figurehead results in the the Id being satisfied. And the salvation of the world.The professor (Superego) is the epitome of anal retentive, cleaning even as his wife tells him she is leaving him. Even just after that, leaving tape messages for himself, he doesn't mention that she has left, he just jabbers on about bizarre dreams. The scene where he gets reamed by the lesbian hit-woman using her gun is funny in how he instantly loves it.Daphne (Ego) is a chain-smoking nervous wreck, even as she makes a bold move, bashing a couple of guys from the church and kidnapping their cult goddess. She's constantly going back and forth between action on an ill-conceived plan and trying to make everything OK.The nympho (Id) is pure fun; whatever pleasures her at the moment. But by the end of her interaction with the professor, she is frustrated, which isn't surprising.Tom, a mental case, is purely innocent. He starts off pretty much totally whacked out and dependent on his medications, which have run out. As the movie progresses he has moments of increasing lucidity and in the end drives off towards his dream with the hot chick happily coming along for the ride. His improved mental state with increasing time off medication just occurred to me, but fits with other themes in the movie.Lacey Chabert playing the nympho is fun to watch in this part, but maybe that's just pandering to my inner id.There are some lingering questions, such as how a figure as pathetic as the professor was able to get a beautiful wife and house to begin with, or how he has a wife leave him and never mentions it. How Daphne can brutally pound a couple of guys in the head with a baseball bat and not feel a bit of remorse or second guessing. How Tom, who is clueless and confused suddenly gets his head together and leaves with the girl, which is a great ending, but a bit surprising that he can drive. Or how the professional hit-woman is such a terrible shot at the end. The lesbian hit-woman is completely superfluous, but hey, why not.All in all, it's fun to watch, if a bit slow in parts, particularly dealing with the professor's character development. I loved the anti-religious undertones, which are subtle and humorous, pointing out the controlling, and often two-faced and hypocritical nature of it.

but then again, so is most of everything now a days. The version that I'd picked up had said Billy Zane as the Assassin on the cover-such lies! The movie in my opinion wasn't bad but it could of definitely been better. There are many unexplained things in the movie beyond the obvious unexplained parts.I'm confused on some things and I have issues with the characters and I will mention what they are: 1. What was Casey on for her to seem like all blissful that she was going to die? No holy visitation nowadays could pull that mood upper on.2. Tom was this mentally damaged fraud that got cheated out his cut of the churches scam. So one moment he can't do anything for himself like finish cutting his hair and goes into seizures and is oblivious to many things but seems to pull it together when he finds out that his nurse kidnapped his sister.3. The female assassin who likes to sodomize men with the silencer bit of her gun has no real history or character line to her except that she's ruthless looking, a great shot and her girlfriend left her and after seeing what she does to "the professor" I can only guess why.4. Back to Tom; how can he (being a brain damaged tard) drive off with a very perfect, desired, nubile nymph towards Oregon to have a child in the future with this woman who eventually saves the world? How can he even drive if he can't even cut his hair????????? 5. Did Meatloaf die from his Hepatitus sickness or pass out from the fear of death with a silencer at the nape of his neck.6. If the Professor who seems to be so involved with himself and his thanatos/eros theories couldn't care less about his wife leaving him for a woman, why would he care in the end to finish them off butt naked might I add? Was this summarizing his research or deception to the viewers? 7. The church cult people that was lead by Billy Zane. I've never been out to LA and it looks like I'll never will but, despite hearing how whacked out it is out there, can clergy and other men of the clothe carry guns? 8. Where were the two henchmen taking Casey? 9. If the underlining story of Tom and Casey were that they were two kids in a big scam involving being gifted in seeing theological revelations turned real gifts, did some how Billy Zanes character (Marvin?) seen this, what this all a plot by this church cult to bring the neo-messiah? So many questions, too much for my moneys worth. There were some funny parts as in "Madame, I think you have the wrong room" and the femme fatal was really giving it to the Professor. I'm confused about this scene too because obviously she sodomized him to be cruel but in a way introducing the professor (who's repressed and self-involved) to a hidden pleasure of his so in a way they've connected? I don't know. This is something I would not watch again but the best part of the movie for me besides the professor and the nymph's story line is that of the Nurse's character (Holly Davis?)which shows a tortured woman who's brought down by the corruption of it all who decides to take matters in her own hands literally, ending up being corrupted which led her to a very tragic death in my eyes. But again there raises another question, did the Nurse try to really ransom Tom's sister for money for Tom or for herself????

A nurse and her patient, a professor and his nymphomaniac student, Meat Loaf, Billy Zane and a showdown at the Big Cock Inn. Just another day in the lives of our hapless heroes.I like films and stories that have multiple story lines that converge into one connected plot. Tarantino does this well. I myself wrote a novel with four interwoven plots. "Anna Karenina" did this very well. This film did not pull off the magic as well as we could have hoped.A professor leaves home when he finds his wife has a lesbian lover and along the way picks up a sexy escort (played by the ravishing Lacey Chabert). But this plot is full of such annoyances -- every time something cool is about to happen, it is stopped.A nurse takes her patient away and kidnaps a girl to raise money. She even involves Meat Loaf (who, like his character in "Pelts", likes to kill raccoons). This has some potential, but is plagued by the fact it just doesn't make much sense. A nurse kidnapping someone? I guess, but it seems extreme.The worst part is that the best character is the priest played by Billy Zane and Zane only shows up for a brief time (delivering some great lines). Had he appeared more often, the film would have been significantly improved. But we are left wanting.And that's what it really came down to: a teaser with no satisfaction. Not enough Zane, not enough sex (especially with as much as they hint at) and a plot that ultimately seems more forced than fluid. I enjoyed the movie, but it was nothing special and certainly doesn't warrant a second viewing on my part. Maybe I missed something deeper, but I really doubt it.