Joseph Gordon-Levitt's bike-messenger chase movie is a diverting summer trifle.
I believe the world can be divided into three distinct populations: bike messengers; people who have never shared a road with bike messengers; and people who have done so and, as a result, can't stand bike messengers. Given the size of this final cohort, it was an act of some bravery for the filmmakers behind Premium Rush to make their hero, yes, a bike messenger. The ugly reminders are all right up there on the screen: the mortal swerves amid traffic, the red lights run, the multi-car pileups initiated, the routine terrorization of motorists and pedestrians alike.
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Of course, unlike the bike messenger in question, none of these innocent bystanders is played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, so he's got that going for him. Gordon-Levitt stars as Wilee—nicknamed, inevitably, "the coyote"—a twentysomething whose choice of profession, current unemployment figures notwithstanding, is a consequence of enthusiasm, not necessity. A graduate of Columbia Law School, Wilee has nonetheless eschewed the bar in favor of the bike—specifically, a stripped down, fixed-gear steel frame with no brakes. (He argues that they cause more accidents than they prevent; I can only hope that the attorneys at Columbia Pictures are well prepared for a future class-action suit.)