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A series comprised of eight short films produced by Tony Scott and Ridley Scott (The Gladiator), The Hire was immensely popular among the automotive circle. The basic premise is this: Clive Owen stars as The Driver, much like a mercenary-for-hire, but this time he uses his car sliding instead of gun slinging. Of course, The Driver is thrown into either voluntarily or involuntarily into doing a mission and in the process; the watcher is given numerous interpretations of the compound verb, “car chase”. Of course, having to download 30MB worth of video is a turn-off, especially on a dial-up connection. At the same time, watching The Hire on a 15-inch LCD with pipsqueak speakers like watching a porn video through a peep hole—it just doesn’t cut it. Be glad that BMW of North America finally released this acclaimed series on DVD, and get this—it’s free. The only payment necessary is handling and postage. The asking price and car chases aren’t the only allure. The Hire contains a cast of directors that would typically be seen walking on Oscar’s Red Carpet. At the creative helm of each of these short movies are names such as John Woo (Broken Arrow, MI:2), Tony Scott (Top Gun, Crimson Tide), Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon), Guy Riche (Snatch, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) and John Frankenheimer (The French Connection, Ronin). Of course, all of these legendary names gave their own unique touch and twist to each fifteen minute episode. Watching The Hire over and over again makes obvious that there have been two distinct treatments done: artistic and dramatic. Among those in the first category are “Chosen”, “Power Keg” and “The Follow”, and rest, “Hostage”, “Ticker”, “Beat the Devil”, “Ambush” and “Star” gravitate more towards the second. |
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