What’s Worth Watching: David Morrissey Gets Behind the Wheel in ‘The Driver’

The Driver
Ben Blackall/Acorn
The Driver

The Driver, “Episode One,” Acorn TV

If you only know David Morrissey as the murderous Governor from The Walking Dead, his range as a first-rate character actor may surprise you. As Vince McKee, a working-class cabbie who takes a fatalistic film noir detour into criminal behavior—suffering for every bad choice or turn he makes—he commands a Humphrey Bogart-like everyman empathy in The Driver, a compelling three-part British crime drama. (Acorn will release a new episode every Monday through April 27.)

Bored by his dead-end underpaying job and frustrated at home, where his wife forgets their anniversary—that’s a new twist—and where his teenage daughter more predictably disrespects him on a regular basis, dissatisfied Vince is all too easily led into the criminal fast line by an ex-con buddy (the always terrific Ian Hart), who introduces him to a gruff local crime boss known as “The Horse” (Colm Meaney). “Sometimes you might have to drive a bit faster,” is all Horse will coyly tell him at first. But as Vince’s assignments pull him away from his concerned family into a dark whirlpool of deadly deception, you’ll root for this taxi driver not to end up like Travis Bickle from the Scorsese movie.