Vehicle 19

A low budget indie thriller with an interesting concept, but VEHICLE 19 suffers from sluggish pace and short of adrenaline rush. The first thing that attracted me to watch this low-budget indie thriller called VEHICLE 19 is its irresistible concept -- the movie is shot entirely from inside the car. Now that's what I called a great novelty. However, South African director Mukunda Michael Dewil fails to capitalize his own concept. Instead of a fast-paced thriller normally expected from this kind of movie, VEHICLE 19 sputters as it moves along. Somewhere in between, director Mukunda Michael Dewil manages to stage some claustrophobic moments and worthy action scenes within the confined space of a car (and limited budget). Paul Walker is fairly adequate to put on a (mostly) one-man show as a brooding and manic anti-hero. It's a shame that Mukunda Michael Dewil's script is lackluster. More than often, the movie loses its momentum whenever it tries to elaborate the storyline. The pace is patchy, while the movie's overly-stylized look is too distracting for its own good. Overall, VEHICLE 19 only works in certain angles. The rest of them are as rusty as a beat-up engine.

I was very saddened, as was everyone, by the recent passing of Paul Walker. He may not have been the finest actor around, but he had charisma and screen presence. He seemed to love doing movies involving cars as a central theme. Unfortunately this may have skewed his decision on deciding to do 'Vehicle 19', because not many could debate this was a blight on his career.

The first thing that must be mentioned is the grim view it portrays of Johannesburg, South Africa. From what I understand of the place (having never been) what we see is quite accurate to how things really are, but it just felt as though the quantity it was shown in was overkill. There were constantly people coming up to cars with knives demanding wallets, or kids coming up and distracting from one window while another child steals things from the other window, or even people driving by a pulled over police car and throwing things at it before driving off. Just a few examples of things that just kept coming up and were for the most part completely unrelated to the story and held little relevance to anything. Perhaps writer/director Mukunda Michael Dewil had a bad experience there once?

The writing is lazy throughout. The opening scene shows Walker's character in a car chase trying to avoid the police. The screen then pauses and we are shown the word on the screen "earlier". I don't mind beginning a movie with a scene that takes place later in the piece, but the scene needs to provide at least some intrigue or mystery. This movie is called 'Vehicle 19', it wouldn't have taken a genius to work out there would be a car chase in it at some point. The set-up is incredibly lazy, to the point that no explanation is even attempted as to why Walker's character is given the wrong car in the first place. The characters make incredibly unrealistic decisions throughout which makes it really hard to have any empathy for them. Naima McLean's acting was near unwatchable. Walker himself does what he can with a terrible script and terrible actors to work off. I was actually impressed with the effort he put in. I'm sure he realised pretty early in the piece what a shocker he'd signed on to, so it can't have been easy.

It's a real shame this movie has to stay on Walker's résumé, especially in the latter part of it. He had some pretty good movies in his time, 'Joy Ride' being a personal favourite of mine and of course the 'Fast and Furious' series. Of course no actor is clean of the odd shocker so it'll be forgiven. But I plead with you - if you get the urge to go and rent/buy some Walker films to remember him by just skip over this one.

A foreign traveler (Paul Walker) unknowingly picks up a rental car that will tie him to a web of corrupt local police. That's how it was listed, sounded like it would be a good thriller, so we decided to rent it. BIG Mistake! As soon as the movie starts, they start to play some kind of loud rap mess, Oh Ooooooo.....

Fifteen minutes into the movie, my wife whispers that our dog has more intelligence than the main character. That sums up the writing script. I won't go into the countless preposterous senseless things that happen because my review would be as long as the screen play itself. But, diehards that we are, we watched it to the end. All 85 minutes of it. You read correctly. The writer couldn't even think of another 5 minutes of junk to at least make it a respectable 90 minutes. Oops! Did I say: "Watched it to the end"? That would insinuate that there was actually an ending to the story. There Was an end to the movie but the end of the story must have been cut. I guess the writer figured that since most people would have walked out already, he could save a few minutes of his time and money by just not wasting time on an ending.

This movie was obviously written for a percentage of the younger crowd that support double digit I.Q.'s. Of course, if you are one of the above, just ignore my obviously ridiculous review, accept my apology, and rent this Exciting, Action, Thriller immediately.

If I sounded cynical or misanthropical, guilty as charged. I realize that movie makers lie, cheat, and do whatever they can think of to Sell A Movie so that they can milk the public for every penny that they can. But, to this day, I still feel defiled when I voluntarily give up my hard earned money for something that is advertised as good when it turns out to be just another ripoff. And, as usual in the case of bad cinema drivel, the trailer was once again better than the entire movie. Heck, just watch the trailer 40 times. That's free, you'll get your 85 minutes worth of entertainment, and you'll enjoy it more than the actual movie.

Plot was refreshing. Paul's acting specially toward the later half was good. The camera usage laced inside the car was very unique. Not seen many movies with this kind of attempt.

What screwed up the movie for me was the numerous logical errors right from start. Car company gives a rental without checking and cleaning out the vehicle? Why would a person in a new country rent a car...instead of using a taxi or Super Shuttle or whatever? In 2011 who does not have a smartphone which has GPS capability? Who does not come prepared to a new country without specific instructions to reach the US Embassy? Paul takes so much time to decide to spray his car. If you are a criminal on the run the first thing you would do is to ditch your vehicle and try using another. Or just hire a cab to get to US embassy.

A different Director would have made this a great movie. Sorry I cannot go beyond 5 in rating this movie

"There was a mix-up. That car was meant to be picked up by one of our undercover police officers." Michael Woods (Walker) flies to South Africa to see his girlfriend that he hasn't seen in a long time. When he gets to the airport there is a problem with the rental car agency and he grabs another car just to get to his girl as fast as he can. While driving he receives a call from a stranger telling him the car was not meant for him. When he finds a woman in the trunk with a secret that can take down the entire police force Michael is forced into a situation he is not used to. I have to admit that I am not a Paul Walker fan at all so remember that in this review. For the plot and idea of this the movie was pretty slow moving. Do not expect a Fast & Furious type movie. This is more like the Transporter, but slower. The entire movie, except for the first few minutes takes place entirely in a car. Normally that doesn't bother me, but this just didn't have enough action to keep me interested in the one shot. Overall, to me Paul Walker was neither fast nor furious in this, and neither was the movie. I give it a C+.