Chicago Cab (1997)

Directors:

Mary Cybulski
John Tintori

Writers:

Will Kern (play)
Will Kern (written by)

Release Date:

2 October 1998 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Tagline:

Do you dare pay the fare?

Plot:

There is more to this story than this review lets on. It reflects all different facets of society over one drivers shift...

Plot Keywords:

Hospital | Pakistani | Cab Driver | Lawyer | Rape

Cast

Paul Dillon	...	Cab Driver
Tim Gamble	...	Religious Father
Olivia Trevino	...	4-Year Old Girl
Moira Harris	...	Religious Mother
Rana Khan	...	Pakistani
Darryl Theirse	...	X-Hat
Michael Ironside	...	Al
Shanesia Davis-Williams	...	Lawyer
Laura Kellogg Sandberg	...	Bug-Eyed Woman
Phillip Edward Van Lear	...	Father-to-Be (as Phillip Van Lear)
Ora Jones	...	Pregnant Woman
Michael Shannon	...	Crack Head
Shulie Cowen	...	Stoner Girl
Andrew Rothenberg	...	Homer
Tracy Letts	...	Sports Fan

Also Known As:

Hellcab (USA) (video title)

MPAA:

Rated R for pervasive strong language, and for sexual content.

Runtime:

USA:96 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Iceland:L | Australia:MA | Spain:13 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Company:

Child's Will Productions

Trivia:

The original play, "Hellcab", opened in Chicago in 1992.

Movie Connections:

References "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" (1962)

Soundtrack:

Hammering the Cramps

You can see what it was trying to do but it doesn't manage to do it

In Chicago we spend the day with the driving of a taxi who starts work at 6am, picking up a religious family and taking them to church. Throughout the day he has to deal with many different types of fare, from abusive boyfriends, drunken sports fans, adulterous colleagues and a woman who has been raped. He increasingly gets more and more impatient and distraught with what he sees in Chicago's life and he starts to get very tired as his shift reaches way past midnight on a freezing cold Christmas in Chicago.

This film had potential – lots of characters, lots of stories, lots of real people all come and go past our main character as he drives his cab, however it is all the more annoying for the fact that it is just a badly fragmented film where little bits sort of work, some bits could have worked and other bits are just clichéd and lazily written. Too many of the characters' stories just stop and their point is lost. This is a waste because there is such a wide variety of recognisable characters here that it is a shame that nothing of any interest is done with them. Some of the stories do work and have a minor impact but they are just lost in a film that lacks structure and seems content to be a patchwork of stories and nothing else. Of course, many better films have shown us that a variety of stories with a loose connection can work as a film, but this film fails to have a real central point that we can latch onto.

This point should have been the cabbie, but the film does a bad job with his character and I was never emotionally drawn into his life or his thoughts. Some of the individual stories are quite interesting but they are so truncated that they make no real impact. The cast try hard and I was impressed (surprised?) by just how many well known faces had signed up for the film. Dillon is OK but can't do much with the character – it feels like he is being given direction without understanding what his character feels. The rest of the cast are basically cameos and most of them aren't very good simply because they aren't given much to work with. Ironside, Metcalf, Reilly, Anderson, Cusack, Lennix, Moore and Hayes all show up but few of them can raise the material.

Overall this was an interesting film that had potential but fails to really deliver. It is a good idea and one that requires very good delivery to hold all these stories together and deliver an emotionally satisfying film at the end – however the film fails to do that and it is annoying for that reason. It is a failure but it is not totally without merit, but having said that, I could see no reason for me to ever want to see this again.