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