THE STORY – A lonely custodian discovers purpose and community when he enters the world of competitive drift racing.
THE CAST – Sung Kang, Tamara Braun, Michael Nehring, Grant Sullivan, McCaleb Burnett, Gregory Cruz, James Pumphrey, Adam LZ, Shane Johnson, Rutledge Wood, Jully Lee, Jo Sung, Taeon Chung, Ilia Smolov and Nikita Rushmanov
THE TEAM– Sung Kang (Director/Writer), Aaron Strongoni (Writer), and Ted Chung (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 147 Minutes
After twenty-plus years of being in the “Fast and the Furious” series, it’s sufficient to say that actor Sung Kang knows a little something about driving. His time in the box-office behemoth franchise has cemented his place as a recognizable face worldwide and, more importantly, within the car community. His off-screen embrace of this group, which has supported his career for decades, has clearly influenced the art he wants to create. So for someone with the fictional moniker of “Drift King,” it only makes sense that Kang is best suited to bring the hyper-niche world of competitive drifting to life as a filmmaker. His latest feature, “Drifter,” cashes in on the persona we’ve come to love, taking us back to the days when “Fast and Furious” was purely about street racing and swerving in city streets. “Drifter” sounds like a match made in heaven, yet for a film that wants to be an intimate drama combining the essence of films like “Rocky” and “Drive,” it stalls out every chance it gets.
From the opening moments of “Drifter,” it’s clear that Kang is extending past his capabilities as an artist. The triple-hyphenate leads the film as Tree, a silent custodian at California’s Willow Springs Raceway whose dream of making it as a drifter is his only way out of his small life in Barstow. It’s a pipe dream for Tree, who also moonlights as a drug runner for Gregory Cruz’s Lantana, a local kingpin, to pay off the remaining debt his father left unfinished. After making a splashy appearance at a pro-am event with his forty-year-old AE86 Corolla GT-S, Tree earns the opportunity to compete in the big leagues to make a name for himself. If he’s going to want to chase this lifelong passion, Tree is going to have to win over the rest of his trackmates, put aside his criminal way of life, and, more importantly, put himself out there if he’s going to be the next drifting champion.
It feels like Kang can’t pull the film out of neutral because the screenplay by Aaron Strongoni, Ted Chung, and himself makes every interaction feel contrived, rooted in the tropes of films that came before it. The intimate beginning, with Tree wallowing in his silent lifestyle, feels like a blessing compared to the rest of the film, especially when other characters appear and deliver some of the most rote dialogue you can imagine. Every side character is a caricature, and each performer realizes it in the most uninspired way. It’s insufferable at times watching Tree interact with his friends at the Tire shop or colleagues on the racetrack who bully him for his disfigurement. It’s hilarious to even think about it because Tree is merely blind in one eye that’s glossed over, yet he’s ostracized like he’s Frankenstein’s monster. Still, one person is willing to set his personal feelings aside to help Tree chase greatness.
Michael Nehring’s Bennett, an aged coach, reluctantly takes Tree under his tutelage to shape his innate instinct into a race-ready performer. He’s a positive role model who clearly heightens the collision between Tree’s racing dilemmas and the consequences of his criminal life. Nehring attempts to bring a commanding presence to the character but is often left astray with no support from Kang’s direction. Every other performance misses the mark, including Kang, whose inert screen presence makes Tree’s lack of social skills a cop-out for the performers’ inability to deliver an emotionally riveting performance.
Rarely does the entire ensemble fit the picture audiences show up for, let alone deliver performances that are watchable. Even the inclusion of real figures in the professional drifting world, like Dai Yoshihara or Adam LK, doesn’t add much texture to the slight worldbuilding in “Drifter.” Adam LK, heralded as a master of his craft, isn’t an apt foil to Tree; he’s presented to audiences as a hyped-up rival in the vein of someone like Apollo Creed, only to be absent for most of the film.
The crime-thriller elements of “Drifter” feel completely out of place, especially in how it resolves itself in one of the film’s multiple endings. Then there’s the romantic side plot involving Tamara Braun’s Rosie, which is horrid, mainly used as a cheap cinematic tool to ground an emotionally despondent character. Every interaction they have, from their dance montages to Rosie’s unintentionally hilarious long-winded montages, feels utterly contrived to create stakes. There are no sparks between the two performers, so we have no reason to invest in their relationship. It’s all the more hilarious to see Braun having her heart out all the while Kang awkwardly implements needle drops from artists like Cigarettes After Sex and Hillsong UNITED.
Kang’s technical prowess as a filmmaker isn’t that much better than his screenwriting. At least occasionally, his visual eye leads to something stimulating, as Bruce Thierry Chung’s cinematography is interesting at times, mainly because of effective composition that takes advantage of the gorgeous golden hour of the California desert. Some of the drifting sequences are well captured, mainly the first pro-am event Tree competes in, where, for once, the film feels like Kang’s direction has solid footing. The tight editing feels fleeting, as the dynamic variety of POV driving shots and the use of drones are the last times the film feels thrilling before it turns into a melodramatic slog. We should appreciate that Kang tried to steer away from a more by-the-book racing drama, but even when pivoting into something more intimate, he makes every wrong turn into the worst aspects of his craft.
