Deadpan Absurdity in Zany ‘Adrenaline Drive’
The Shooting Gallery Film Club’s outstanding first series comes to a slam-bang conclusion at the Fairfax Cineplex with Shinobu Yaguchi’s “Adrenaline Drive,” a rip-roaring romantic comedy that’s as funny as it is light on its feet.
Yaguchi rigorously maintains a deliciously deadpan take on escalating absurdities as one inspired, zany moment leads to the next with unflagging zest and imagination. Yaguchi is like an impossibly audacious juggler who never drops a plate or slackens his pace. (You have to wonder whether Shooting Gallery has considered an English-language remake.)
In a sizable, unidentified Japanese city, a tall young man, Satoru (Masanobu Ando) is driving a car with his boss from hell, a jerk in charge of a car rental agency who is constantly baiting him. The older guy keeps placing his hand over Satoru’s eyes, and sure enough, the car crashes into a black Jaguar--belonging, wouldn’t you know, to the steely, unamused yakuza, Kuroiwa (Yutaka Matushige).
Of course, Satoru’s boss, who’s not about to report the incident to the company, leaves the shy youth holding the bag, wondering how on earth he will ever pay for the damages. But the bag Satoru soon ends up with contains a fortune in yakuza loot.
Satoru doesn’t need to worry for long, because a terrific explosion at yakuza headquarters wipes out virtually the entire gang, sending Kuroiwa to the hospital with near-fatal injuries.
Meanwhile, there’s a young nurse, Shizuko (Hikari Ishida), whose glasses hide her good looks and who despite being bashful doesn’t flinch when opportunity knocks. Satoru and that ton of ill-gotten cash come Shizuko’s way, and she and Satoru are off and running to a luxe mountain resort, where they register as husband and wife and plunge into the high life.
A made-over, contact-lensed Shizuko wouldn’t mind having both the man and the money, but before Satoru can overcome his shyness, mayhem breaks loose, mainly in the form of half a dozen of Kuroiwa’s youngest, dumbest, most brutal hooligans, the gang’s apparent sole survivors. They’re on order from their boss to retrieve that loot immediately. (They’re played by the performance comedy troupe Jovi Jova.)
It is amazing how Yaguchi is able to come up with so many fresh, off-the-wall variations on the lovers-on-the-run plot. Good English subtitles reveal Yaguchi to have a way with witty dialogue, but his key strength is that he has a flair for knockabout physical comedy of the silent-era masters, whose humor had to rely on visual power.
This gives “Adrenaline Drive” terrific, vigorous grace--cinematographer Takashi Hamada is a virtuoso--and also detachment, letting us ponder, should we care to, about the power of money to transform lives. No matter whether Shizuko and Satoru end up with or without the money--or with or without each other--they’ve become assertive and free of their humdrum existences, if only temporarily.
Ishida and Ando are most appealing and adept young actors, and they are as beguiling as their movie.
* Unrated. Times guidelines: standard gangster movie violence treated comically; suitable for all ages.
‘Adrenaline Drive’
Hikari Ishida: Shizuko Sato
Masanobu Ando: Satoru Suzuki
Yutaka Matushige: Kuroiwa
Jovi Jova: Kuroiwa’s hooligans
A Shooting Gallery release of an Adrenaline Drive Committee/Kindai Eiga Kyokai Co./Gaga Communications/There’s Enterprise/Nippon Shuppan Hanbai production. Writer-director-editor Shinobu Yaguchi. Producers Kiyoshi Mizokami, Kenichi Itaya, Tomohiro Kobayashi. Cinematographer Takashi Hamada. Music Seiichi Yamamoto. Art director Yoshio Yamada. In Japanese, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 49 minutes.
Exclusively at the Loews Cineplex Fairfax Cinemas, 7907 Beverly Blvd. Ticket information: (877) 905-FILM. Theater: (323) 653-3117.