License To Drive

Fresh from cult status in many an 80s movie and following their partnership in The Lost Boys, teen stars Corey Haim and Corey Feldman reunite as they live life in the fast lane in this coming of age comedy

Fresh from cult
status in many an 80s movie and following their partnership in The Lost Boys, teen
stars Corey Haim and Corey Feldman reunite as they live life in the fast lane in
this coming of age comedy.

Teenager Les (Haim) is counting the minutes until he can
pass his driving test and finally get his licence. He manages to secure a date with the lovely Mercedes Lane (Heather Graham), but then fails his
driving test that same day. He
decides to sneak out in his grandfather’s vintage Cadillac to meet Mercedes but
soon runs in to trouble when he meets up with friends including Dean (Feldman)
and a series of hilarious mishaps bring harm to the car.

Haim and Feldman are engaging to watch and it is no wonder that
they achieved relative fame as a duo until Haim’s death in 2010. The 80s
however was their definitive era. Haim’s
cheeky, baby faced persona against Feldman’s super cool, devil-may-care
rebellion is a winning teen comedy combination. The film is packed with one-liners that only Feldman can carry off: ‘Can
you take the car in to neutral? We
just got passed by a street sweeper’ and ‘To live in fear is not to live at
all.’ Carol Kane and Richard Masur
give amusing performances as Les’ parents and a young, fresh faced Heather
Graham with a voluminous Julia Roberts
perm in her screen debut as Mercedes rounds off the cast nicely.

License to Drive embodies all the themes of the 80s
movie: parties, perms, shoulder
pads, fast cars and, as we know from Ferris
Bueller’s Day Off, the token school bus of horror. Predictably, the soundtrack includes a
plentiful amount of songs about cars and/or driving and other 80s hits but it
is hard not to love it. Truth be
told there is not a whole lot going on plot-wise in this movie – it is as
simple as it gets, but it does deliver the laughs with its retro
slapstick. A particularly
hilarious scene to look out for is the one with the drunk driver who steals
Les’ car.

License to Drive will never live up to the legendary 80s movies
that are Ferris Bueller or indeed The Lost Boys but it is a nice easy-going
watch with enough comedy to keep you chuckling and make you glad you bought it. And we won’t judge you if you feel the
need to roll up your sleeves, turn up your collar and rock out to the cheesy
Billy Ocean tune at the end – promise.