Taxi (DVD) > Reviews > BLOODY FRENCH... Don't know how to drive

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Liked it
Story	Good
Characters / Performances	Good
Special Effects	Good
Soundtrack	Average

Advantages:	Chase Scenes, Witty Dialogue, Very Entertaining
Disadvantages:	Not Good If you Don't Know French Or Like Reading Subtitles, Poor DVD

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I thought it was fitting to write about this film because I know that the sequal is soon to be appearing in (some) cinemas. So if you want to see Taxi 2 (or whatever it's going to be called), you might want to see the original first.

From the people that brought you Léon... Taxi is a French action/comedy... a bit like Rush Hour only in French. The story follows our 'hero' Daniel, who is a bit of a boy racer. Starting off driving a scooter as a pizza delivery boy, he then moves on to become a taxi driver. Whilst driving in his 'modified' Peugeot 406 we see him go about his business giving neck-breaking rides to unsuspecting passengers.

On day though he gives a ride to an undercover police man, who forces him into working as his personal police car driver in order to keep his licence. Up until now he had never been caught by the police... his car was too fast.

The rest of the film follows him helping the police catch some German bank robbers... who also tend to drive fast cars & (surprise, surprise) he becomes a key figure in trying to catch these criminals.

Not the best story but then it's not really meant to be... it's an action film which doesn't take itself too seriously. What really sells the film is the stunts & car chases. Watching 'normal' cars being thrashed around France à la Ronin (another good film). The car chases take up a good chunk of the film & are really well produced... although not amazingly realistic sometimes.

The acting is good... I can't comment too much because my French (although quite good) isn't near as fluent as theirs. This may not be a film for people that don't like subtitles or speak the language & I felt it's harder to follow than films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon... perhaps because it's not in 'simple' dialogue.

The DVD is very poor, all you get is a trailer & the normal scene access from the well presented menus. It would have been nice to see how they filmed the car chases like on the Ronin DVD.

That's about it really... worth seeing if you like something a bit different.

It's rated 15 & has a running time of about 90 minutes.