# The Driver (2014)

> A despondent Manchester cab driver is drawn into a criminal gang's dangerous work after agreeing to drive for them.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/54738

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 3
- Episode runtime: 60 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: crime, drama
- Created by: Jim Poyser, Daniel Brocklehurst
- Network: BBC One
- Cast: David Morrissey, Claudie Blakley, Harish Patel, Sacha Parkinson, Lee Ross, Lewis Rainer, Colm Meaney, Darren Morfitt
- TMDB rating: 6.9/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3956604/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: bleak, tense, gritty, downbeat, paranoid

## Synopsis

The Driver (2014) is a British three-part crime drama miniseries created by Jim Poyser and Daniel Brocklehurst for BBC One. David Morrissey plays Vince McKee, a despondent Manchester cab driver whose dull life is upended when he agrees to become the getaway driver for a criminal gang. The engine of the story is his reluctant entanglement: every job pulls him deeper into the underworld while he tries to protect his family, including his wife Rosalind (Claudie Blakley) and daughter Katie (Sacha Parkinson). Colm Meaney appears as the gang figure known as The Horse, adding menace to the criminal dealings. The three hour-long episodes unfold as one tightly plotted story rather than a case-of-the-week format, building tension through heists, betrayals and mounting debts. Set in contemporary Manchester, the drama is grim and downbeat, with a working-class northern grit and a bleak, paranoid atmosphere. Fans of Line of Duty, Peaky Blinders and the film Drive will find resonance in its gritty British crime texture and its portrait of an ordinary man sucked into dangerous work. The series is a compact, self-contained British crime serial that rewards close attention to its moral pressure and quiet despair.

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