Set in and around the roughest streets of Manchester, UK, THE DRIVER is at heart a morality tale revealing the consequences of Vince McKee's (David Morrissey's) decision to agree to become the driver of a criminal gang headed by Horse (Colm Meaney).
Not only does Vince become involved in a complicated web of lies and deceit, but his family life is destroyed as a result. His wife Ros (Claudie Blakley), and daughter Katie (Sacha Parkinson) are forced to make life-changing decisions in order to live - something they had never even considered before. Vince's son Tim (Lewis Rainer) has also left home, and apparently will never speak to the rest of the family again - at least for the foreseeable future.
Jamie Payne's production does not take sides, but explores the destructive effect that Vince's decision has on his own psyche, as well as that of his family. The production is full of close-ups of his tortured face as he merely goes through the motions of trying to be a good family man, while implicitly accepting everything that Horse and his fellow gang-members want from him. Having sacrificed his soul to the devil, so to speak, there is really not much point in life for him, despite his attempts to justify himself. On the other hand, what other choice does he have, other than to continue working in a dead-end job as a minicab driver, living a hand-to- mouth existence under the aegis of unsympathetic boss Amjad (Harish Patel)?
The noir atmosphere of the production is significant, conjuring up a world of shadows and perpetual cloud and rain in which moral standards have simply been forgotten. All the characters inhabit a netherworld in which financial gain assumes primary importance. The car-chases assume a thematic importance - not only as a means for people to escape from their pursuers, but as a metaphor for a desperate dog-eat-dog world in which only the fittest survive. Vince is nothing more than a pawn in everyone else's schemes.
THE DRIVER ends on a note of qualified optimism, but does not suggest that Vince's family life will ever be restored to 'normality'. On the contrary, Payne's production suggests that this kind of life can never exist in a noir world. Vince just has to make the best of what he has.
Snappily directed, with some good action sequences intercut with claustrophobic interior sequences, THE DRIVER is a highly watchable miniseries.
