Walker (remember him from the Fast and Furious series?) plays Michael, a decent, rough-edged sorta guy who goes to South Africa to see his ex-spouse,and ends up in the wrong rental car upon landing. The car comes with a hidden gun and a gagged woman named Rachel (McLean) in the back seat.
There`s a plotline in there somewhere, featuring a South African law enforcer as a villain, but like most movies of its ilk, Vehicle 19 is more interested in the set-up for the car chase sequences. In this regard, the movie takes a page from the playbook of one-location movies like Phone Booth and Buried, only this time the camera stays more or less locked inside a minivan.
It`s undoubtedly an interesting premise, and director Mukunda Michael Dewil deserves props for the creative mash-up. Sad to say, however, that there`s little else to credit Vehicle 19 with. The car chase scenes feel intentionally claustrophobic, with the camera rarely leaving the interior of the minivan, which incidentally isn`t the fastest thing to burn tarmac. There`s a standout scene in which the minivan zips past shelves in a grocery store, but the high-octane adrenaline of a proper car chase movie just doesn`t happen when propelled by the horsepower of a minivan.
As a result, we`re left with the middling thespian talents of Walker to pull this movie through its 85-odd minute length, which starts feeling a lot longer than it should. Walker may be entertaining in his most famous role, but with the rest of the Fast and Furious cast painfully absent from this caper, he lacks the range required to keep Vehicle 19 as riveting as it could have been.
It`s not that Vehicle 19 is without its redeeming qualities merely that it lacks the only one that counts in a movie of its genre. It`s short enough to be inoffensive, but is unlikely to hold one`s attention.
Summary: Never shifts out of second gear.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Raphael Lim