Action movie with messenger as central character
16.11.09 by Buffalo Bill
Movie blogs report that a new action movie is planned, in which the central character will be a bicycle messenger. The plot sounds a bit like Diva, a french film which turns on two tapes in the possession of a french postier who rides a scooter, one of which incriminates a bent Paris cop. The title is reported to be ‘Premium Rush’, which is clearly a cue for jokes about the greatest hits of Canada’s prog-rock trio.
As far as I know, only 2 feature films (as opposed to documentaries or shorts) that feature bicycle couriers have ever been released. The first, and most famous, was Quicksilver, starring Kevin Bacon, and featuring Nelson Vails, and the second was 2 Secondes, an altogether quirkier film made in Montreal. Quicksilver is notorious for a chase sequence in which the protoganist shifts into a larger sprocket to increase his speed.
In other news, the Fixed Book competition is now closed, and the lucky winners have been notified by email. The correct answer was, of course, Andy Capp.
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Alsways wondered why no one had made a film of Ultimate Rush by Joe Quirk – high-octane San Fran rollerskate messenger thriller.
www.amazon.co.uk/Ult…
Wonder if the name is a nod to that?
— Simon M Nov 16, 10:40 AM #
Beijing Bicycle is re-make of The Bicycle Thieves where the main guy is a Bike Messenger.
There’s couriers in The Flying Scotsman.
Jason Lee played one in Enemy Of The State.
And I think In The Line Of Fire has a hitman dressed as a bike courier who gets shot in the head, a scene I nearly re-made when I jumped the lights during the changing of the guard at your Queen’s house.
— westcoastmess Nov 16, 11:43 AM #
Yeah, I guess I meant with a courier as the central character. You could also include ‘She’s Gotta Have It’ (Spike Lee plays ‘Mars’, one of the suitors, who is a messenger).
— Bill Nov 16, 12:15 PM #
Which part of “…where the MAIN GUY is a Bike Messenger.” don’t you understand?
— westcoastmess Nov 16, 12:51 PM #
Beijing bicycle I’ll give you. Anyway, since when was coming up with movie trivia a competitive sport? And how she is my Queen? I was never consulted about the monarchical arrangements of this realm.
— Bill Nov 16, 12:58 PM #
The central character in 28 Days Later is a cycle courier is he not?
— overdrive Nov 16, 12:59 PM #
Good call Overdrive.
In The Flying Scotsman the main character is a courier but that’s extreme use of scriptwriters license.
I just meant she’s not my Queen.
I hope you’re not supposed to be answering the radio Bill?
— westcoastmess Nov 16, 01:19 PM #
Oh, is that what that flashing light means?
Anyway, aren’t you supposed to making t-shirts?
— Bill Nov 16, 02:12 PM #
Nah! I’m hosting the 3rd annual Tom Waits Fest at the HOP compound. Which this year just involves me shouting the names of songs at The Pistette while she’s on the phone to Swarovski.
— westcoastmess Nov 16, 02:20 PM #
this sounds like the shoddy thriller ‘shoot the meesenger’, by someone with an improbabl name which I forget. There is also ‘Virtual Light’ by William Gibson (I think), employing much the same motif. The trope of the hunted messenger who is unaware (at first) of what he carries is of course a staple of classical mythology. Mercury, prometheus, and (if we’re feeling particuarly expansive) Odysseus, are all in some sense cariers of new or dangerous knowledge. It is an important charecteristic of the epic mode.
— jontyponty Nov 16, 02:31 PM #
man, that took me hours to submit, but I am a bit dim with the old interntz.
— jontyponty Nov 16, 02:32 PM #
Illuminating!
— Bill Nov 16, 02:36 PM #
it’s also speculative bullshit probably, but hey ho, that’s what my life is these days.
— jontyponty Nov 16, 02:40 PM #
“The trope of the hunted messenger who is unaware (at first) of what he carries is of course a staple of classical mythology.”
Bill, this is like that time Westcoast Messengers hounded you out of Poland and then when you got home you found out you had Chlamydia!
Fun times… fun times.
— westcoastmess Nov 16, 02:57 PM #
Lest we forget Tires from Spaced. Got that 20 quid mate?
— Sideshow Nov 16, 05:42 PM #
Going back a bit, She’s Gotta Have It also featured an original On Yer Bike t shirt!
— zero Nov 16, 06:22 PM #
Tires was played by London’s most famous exenger, and former Moving Target contributor, Michael Smiley.
This has turned into a proper messenger trivia quiz.
What about ‘Streetwise’ the UK TV kids series?
OR ‘Double Rush’ the American TV series.
Or Puck? Or the Creative Couriers that appeared in the live action version of 101 Dalmatians?
I claim my prize!
— Bill Nov 16, 06:22 PM #
I would like to see Virtual Light turned into a movie. (as jontyponty mentioned)
They turned Johnny Nemonic into a movie and it was a 5 page short story… Virtual Light was a book, so they could prolly make at least 9 movie length episodes at the same rate.
Proj on
— yogi Nov 16, 10:07 PM #
Ha yeah! what about Joseph Heller’s autobiography ‘now and then’, in which he describe his time as a teenager working as a bicycle telegram boy. Or (one for Bill) Henry Miller’s acount of his time as a dispatcher for the ‘Cosmomedic Telegraph Company of North America’ in ‘Tropic of Cancer’:
It was a slaughter-house, so help me God. The thing was senseless from the bottom up. A waste of men, material and effort. A hideous farce against a backdrop of sweat and misery. I was up against the whole rotten system of American labour, which is rotten at both ends.’
The worst was that american one with the blonde girl who was an alien or some shit.
— jontyponty Nov 16, 11:37 PM #
Ramjet had another one he was talking about, some novel that sounded just like ‘Shoot the Messenger’ but wasnt’t, that he found in a bin/nicked from a library. But he can’t use keyboards so you’ll have to ask him in person.
— jontyponty Nov 16, 11:39 PM #
I think Janky had the right idea.A courier zombie movie with Pikey as the central character.The plot could revovle around Pikey delivering/picking up human organs for hungry zombies when it emerges that some of the organs have bite marks from someone who has only one front tooth.
This one could be massive!
— overdrive Nov 17, 11:03 AM #
Or a film called ‘Deliverance’ where some fakengers get unwittingly embroiled with the ‘locals’ down the foundry resulting in a toe-tapping ‘duelling-trackstands’ type face-off before luckily escaping back to Hoxton ‘with their secret safe forever’..
— realenger Nov 17, 11:51 AM #
^ best idea ever
— jontyponty Nov 17, 11:59 AM #
There was a Japanese movie in 1999 called Messengers.
www.imdb.com/title/t…
— drumbrake Nov 17, 12:01 PM #
oops, forgot to mention the pivotal scene where Pikey, Overdrive and Wookie take ‘the fat one’ fakenger down to the bogs in the foundry and make them ‘squeal like a pig’. enduring image…
— realenger Nov 18, 12:09 AM #
Yeeee-Hah!
— overdrive Nov 18, 08:47 AM #
how bout that movie with Jessica Simpson crossed with the deliverance Idea but sorta Wolf creek… you could throw in a few zombies if you want… I mean that sorta dead or junkie look is so popular now.
but it really depends on what Bikes they ride… Hello street cred.
— yogi Nov 19, 10:39 AM #
no one has mentioned by far the worst and therefore best messenger main character. it is … wait for it… Queen Latifa thats right, in some shit movie called taxi or something she starts out as a bike messenger and she is rad, then she becomes a shit taxi driver. queen latifa, who would have thought
— tomfaeglasgow Nov 20, 07:21 PM #