“Breakneck Fun”

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

Premium Rush is the ultimate chase movie through the streets of New York City centered around a story about Manhattan bicycle messengers.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Wilee, an obvious reference to Wile E. Coyote of the Road Runner cartoons, but a more appropriate nickname would have been Road Runner itself, or maybe Double R, or possibly even Runner, but that would have been confusing, because he spends most of his time on a bicycle riding and not running.

However, throughout the movie Wilee is not the chaser, but the chasee. Because of an envelope he is delivering for his service, at one time or another Wilee is chased by a mysterious man in an automobile, by a policeman on a bicycle, and even by a plainclothes policeman in his automobile.

Yes, it is a dangerous job being one of the 1,500 bicycle messengers in New York City, and Wilee even says in a voice-over, “One time or another, we all get hit.”

In fact, the movie starts with Wilee having an accident at 6:33 p.m., and then we get a flashback to 5 p.m. when Wilee picked up the envelope, which was a premium-rush delivery that has to be delivered by 7 p.m.

Once he is outside after picking up the envelope, Wilee is stopped by a man who asks for the envelope with a logical story for why Wilee should turn it over.

However, Wilee is suspicious, because a bike messenger’s rules are after a delivery is put in his bag, it is given only to a person at the address where the package is to be delivered, and so Wilee takes off running–I mean, riding.

Then the man chases after Wilee in his car, and they both tear through the streets, avoiding traffic and pedestrians and even running red lights until we are back at the point of Wilee’s accident at the beginning of the movie.

Wilee is different from other messengers in that his bicycle has no brakes and no gears, and he prefers it that way.

Eventually we get more flashbacks for background explanation as to why the envelope is so important to so many people, and the premium rush of the title becomes a premium rush for the audience, as well.

Premium Rush is breakneck fun for everyone.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”