Rated R

Patrick Lussier, who directed “The Prophecy 3,” “White Noise 2,” and “My Bloody Valentine,” sure hasn’t worked all that hard to secure a reputation for himself as a good filmmaker. But with his latest, he has managed a hat trick that has been eluding far superior artists for some time: damned but if he hasn’t figured out how to make Nicolas Cage make sense. The actor is well known for his taxing insistence on being the most outlandish, peculiar or just plain bug-nut crazy element of any movie that will have him (which very rarely does much more than make strong concepts weak, and weak concepts excruciating). Apparently, the trick is to surround the man with so much outlandish, peculiar, bug-nut craziness that he looks like the straight man. 

Cage is cast as a dead man who steals the Devil’s own Chevelle to bust out of Hell on a mission of vengeance against a cult of rednecks who’ve murdered his daughter and plan to sacrifice her baby to achieve world dominion under Satan’s reign. One might think this bizarre plot would bring out the psycho in a guy like Cage. But, funny thing, it all just seems to soothe him. In the roaring tornado of guns, gristle and sexual gratuity that is “Drive Angry,” he stands calmly in the eye, loads his five-barreled shotgun (yes, you read that right), and lights a cigar. Taking its cues from the recent resurgence of gleefully pointless neo-retro grindhouse gag flicks like “Piranha,” “Machete” and “Faster,” “Drive Angry” just barrels its way through a rolling landscape of exploding white trash. The America they tear across is presented as one sprawling Hazzard County, a long highway of greasy spoon diners, truck stops and trailer parks. 

Hopping along for the ride, Amber Heard (“The Step Father,” “Pineapple Express”) unleashes her meanest inner Texan, appearing to have the time of her life as an impossibly gorgeous waitress with boots made for ass-kicking and a disposition to match. The fact that she just happens to roll in a rumbling big block ’69 Charger doesn’t hurt matters, either. “Twilight’s” Billy Burke does a fair turn as the snaky-slick cult leader, wearing the role like a sweaty silk shirt. 

The high point of the cast, though, is certainly Bill Fichtner, who, though typically relegated to playing pencil pushers or somebody’s dad, here steps up to front and center as Satan’s right hand man, hot on Cage’s trail. His character, known only as “The Accountant,” is patient, imperturbable and generally so fucking suave he makes “The Matrix’s” Agent Smith look like Adam Sandler. Like Boba Fett in a Brooks Brother’s suit, he not only walks away with every scene he’s in, but acts as a wonderfully competent counterpoint to all the sputtering, toothless hillbillies that populate the rest of this world.

This is pure whitesploitation, with no apologies given or permission asked. The movie’s magnificently wanton use of 3-D may perfectly sum up the filmmaker’s intentions, flipping a bold, bloody finger to all the pantywaist “depth” that other films have been attempting lately, favoring instead to blow an audience’s eyeballs through the backs of their heads. A frothing, gnashing junkyard dog of a movie, it promises only to be fast, cheap and outta control, and when the rubber hits the road, it delivers.