Synopsis
Do you dare pay the fare?
A day in the life of a Chicago cab driver is examined as he picks up fares from the good and bad parts of the city and emotionally connects to many of his passengers.
1997 Directed by John Tintori, Mary Cybulski
A day in the life of a Chicago cab driver is examined as he picks up fares from the good and bad parts of the city and emotionally connects to many of his passengers.
Paul Dillon Michael Ironside Laurie Metcalf John C. Reilly Gillian Anderson John Cusack Julianne Moore Moira Sinise Darryl Theirse Shanésia Davis Matt Roth Ron Dean April Grace Harry Lennix Kevin J. O'Connor Tim Gamble Olivia Trevino Rana Khan Laura Kellogg Sandberg Phillip Edward Van Lear Ora Jones Michael Shannon Shulie Cowen Andrew Rothenberg Tracy Letts Carol Hall Tim Reinhard Hubert Taczanowski Vince Green Show All…
Hellcab, Hell Cab, Taxi de Chicago, Hellcab - Un inferno di taxi, Diabelna taksówka
It’s a good film but I watched this on Tubi and for some reason all the many curse words were muted, so weird it was a censored version of an obscure independent film. The cast is stacked; Michael Ironside, John Cusack, Harry Lennix, Michael Shannon, Tracy Letts, Laurie Metcalf, Gillian Anderson, John C. Riley, Paul Dillon, and Julianne Moore. Good times.
Checks out as both a Christmas movie and also pristine 90's kitsch, what with a drab urban landscape, music by Helmet's Page Hamilton and Superette, and appearances by John Cusack, Gillian Anderson and Julianne Moore (the Cusack cameo is especially cool and creepy, entirely at odds with his persona). Very suggestive of Danny Boyle and Jim Jarmusch, but I like this better than the latter's other downbeat taxi driver talkie, Night on Earth.
Important to me because it’s the film John Cusack, D.V. DeVincentis, & Steve Pink produced between Grosse Pointe Blank & High Fidelity
Important to all of us because both of Lady Bird’s parents are in it (!!)
P.S. letterboxd bills it as Chicago Cab, but the poster art, my dvd, and the credits all bill it as Hell Cab which is definitely my preferred title
Look at the pua state of that poster. I nearly didn’t bother watching it at all based on that alone, but then I saw the cast.
Michael Shannon is something else.
Honestly do a me, ignore whatever they were doing with that poster and change in title and give it a go.
the lengths i'd go to see 5 minutes of julianne moore
(it was surprisingly ok though)
This was a nice surprise, I wasn't familiar with Chicago Cab or Hellcab if you prefer whatsoever. But I'm glad I did because it's a top notch little 90's indie.
It's a anthology of sorts, a series of vignettes loosely connected by the cab driver in question. essentially a day in the life character study, which I'm usually hit or miss on. Some of them I've absolutely loved, and some I was left thinking "what was the point?" but I guess sometimes not having a point is the point.
Some are comedic but most of them have this mundane feeling, a sort of melancholy "is this life?" kind of attitude. And then some just leave you feeling really REALLY depressed,…
As a generalization, I don't like dramas. But this had such a perfect mix of wit, grit, and heart that it quickly grew on me. Paul Dillon as the cab driver is as sympathetic a character as I've come across in a long time.
Cult of Personality 2020
#2 - Gillian Anderson
we excavated this tape — packaged with the title Hellcab, some questionable box art, and marketed as appropriately pulpy supernatural horror — from our southern utah airbnb. immediately evident to be a must-watch for the ridiculously stacked cast alone (John Cusack, Gillian Anderson, John C. Reilly, Julianne Moore, a young Michael Shannon!), what followed was a testament to the unchecked chaos of the VHS era: a veritable classic indie drama from an alternate version of the 90s, buried by inept and cynical marketing. what Chicago Cab really is is a portrait of a hapless taxi driver with a nasty penchant for empathizing with his imperiled passengers, whose fares trace a linear path through geographically accurate and gorgeously dreary winter Chicago…
watched the full thing for Gillian Anderson to slay the absolute shit out of her 5 minutes screen time and i’d do it again any day.
lmao why was this censored like a basic cable cut on tubi?? This is clearly something with meticulous crafted profanity how dare you silence it out.
This is a really great showcase of Chicago in the 90s, not only visually, where it does a stunning job capturing all sides of the city, but also featuring an all star cast of cameos, many drawn from live theater in Chicago (notably Letts, Metcalf, Shannon). While the writing and performances can be a little uneven, this is a great time.
I’d really like to at least see the play this is based off of, even if my favorite parts of the film are its visuals. Oh and also the soundtrack, it’s very fitting I liked it a lot