If silent stoicism marked Charles Bronson in Hard Times, a mute professionalism does the same for Ryan O'Neal, the glassy-cool wheelman of Hill's second film. Well-tooled like a mid-seventies muscle car, this elegant neo-noir is as single-minded as its denizens, each reduced to the essentials of function-The Driver, The Player (Isabelle Adjani), The Connection (Ronee Blakley)-except for The Detective (Bruce Dern), a sputtering lout of a cop intent on catching the elusive getaway driver. Rightfully compared to Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï (1967), The Driver concentrates on a tightly tuned perfectionist, an exceptional heist driver who has risen above material need and instead practices an almost monastic precision on wheels. Ever-taciturn, The Driver speaks a mere 350 words, but speed-shifts through an equal number of hairpin turns, enforcing in us a speechless awe within the smoky pall of burnt rubber. The Detective's dogged pursuit swerves quickly from righteous justice to cynical lawlessness, leaving just two people standing, one fast, the other furious.