Overdrive mashes so many ideas from other movies that it was hard to keep up with all of them and so I stopped counting when I couldn't keep up. Sure, stealing from other movies isn't a bad idea when you add your own touch. As some guy once said "steal like an artist" but with this one, it's like you're watching a weird reenactment of cool ideas from other movies without adding your own details or imprint or at least gluing them together with some sense.

And this is the case with this movie. They made a soup of ideas from other films: vintage and sports cars, protagonists that get trapped in doing a "job" for the rich douche bag, pretty locations, chases, and cute faces.

But when you add in really bad acting, way too many plot twists and side characters, an absolute lack of chemistry between the main actors, boring racing scenes and some of the stupidest lines of dialogue one can only wonder how come no one realized it was destined to fail in such a loud way?

Speaking of loudness - here is a message to its creators: turning that goddamn volume up to 1 million won't make it more entertaining but instead leave its viewers with a gigantic headache.

I could, however, see 2 qualities in this racing flick: some pretty panoramic views of France (a la Fast and Furious, of course) and the protagonist half-brothers who actually felt like they were half brothers.

Teens will probably fall in love with the cute faces but otherwise, you should stay away from this poor man's Fast and Furious because it "overdrives" far from its inspiration points way up to the realm of too much, or too little. Drive Over it and go see something else.

Also, who the **** eats cereal at night?

OVERDRIVE is a B-movie action flick which sees Scott Eastwood wasting his talents in a movie which is a complete clone of the FAST AND THE FURIOUS franchise. A couple of unlikely car thief brothers are tasked with, well, stealing a car from a rival crime boss, but the usual shenanigans play out and it becomes a desperate race for survival. Despite the nice-looking high definition photography, the presence of Eastwood (looking more like his dad than ever),and some very nice classic cars, this low budget oddity is something of a dud. It feels drawn out and cheap all the way through, and nothing that occurs is particularly thrilling. The best scene is undoubtedly the opening sequence, which has some great stunts and effects, but it appears that that's where all the money went because the rest doesn't match.

"Overdrive" is a pretty new movie from this year, European/American co-production with many French guys working on it. For many of the crew, it is certainly their most known work now and this includes Colombian director Antonio Negret. For the writing duo perhaps not as Brandt and Haas have worked on other blockbuster films together with one of them being part of the F&F franchise and this somewhat explains this film too. The lead actor is Scott Eastwood and once again I am not convinced by him. His striking similarity to his dad may be there, but the aura certainly isn't and I don't really see him being famous without Clint. I have seen three different face expressions max in here. His co-lead Freddie Thorp does what was asked from him, bring in some comic relief and act like a fool often enough that Eastwood looks more like the competent quietly convincing bad-ass guy. The biggest female character is played by Ana de Armas, who is currently enjoying a breakthrough year with the new Blade Runner film. Her Steph in here also really works to some extent and despite the runtime I found it difficult to perceive her as an equal member of the team. Good for them giving significance to her character and attempting to have more to her than a generic stereotypical girlfriend performance, but it's not really working.

The supporting characters were a big problem here. That fat bomb guy is never as funny as he was intended to be, the thief chick was so irrelevant that she never was memorable enough to help turning the other brother's love life struggles into something relevant and the rest of the team we simply don't find out about at all. The villain actors weren't bad. The Indian guy did not have too much to work with in terms of both material and screen time, but Abkarian does a good job and Schick I know very well being from Germany and he is a much better actor than he is allowed to show us here, even with that final plot twists. And honestly, it's hard enough to believe already these goofball brothers and their posse are gifted enough to trick 2 crime bosses, but 3? Maybe the filmmakers realized this too and that's why they turned him into one of the good guys. Near the end, the movie gets its spectacular car chase scene too of course, but as I have pretty much zero interest in (race) cars, that one was the most forgettable sequence of the entire film perhaps. It is a movie that is made for those who enjoy great cars more than great movies, so like I wrote in the title: If the F&F franchise is for you or stuff like Gone in 60 Seconds, then probably you can enjoy this one here too. And hope for the sequel that is hinted at at the very end. Otherwise, I strongly suggest you skip this one. It's not a failure really, but due to insufficient love to detail in story-telling and character writing and acting, it's far from the level where I'd give it a thumbs-up. Watch something else instead.