Beautiful, lyrical and - unlike so many of its commercial brethren - this one actually has a story to tell. And it makes me want to rent every one of the director's films.While I felt that Clive Owen was auditioning for Bond in this series of ads, I liked him a lot more here - a hint of character, backbone and story go a long ways... And I've enjoyed Forest Whitaker ever since he stole The Color Of Money from Tom Cruise and Paul Newman. But where that film never seemed to get going again after he left it, this one moves ahead nicely.Recommended.

Although this is an oasis of calm and beauty in the midst of the BMW-series of mostly violent car chases, it is not particularly good as a Wong Kar-Wai film. It's the first time he worked from somebody else's script, and one of the few times he worked from a script at all. The supposedly strict production frame of BMW did not allow for his usual approach of improvisation and intuition. Although Andrew Kevin Walker tailormade his script to fit Wong - taking inspiration from his other movies, mostly CHUNGKING EXPRESS - Wong does not manage to deliver more than a weak clone of himself. The vibrant energy and subtle emotion of his other work is mostly absent here. No wonder he only has himself credited as WKW...

While John Frankenheimer and Ang Lee made films whose primary purpose is to show off the new line of BMW cars, Wong Kar Wai's FOLLOW is the first to actually try to make a genuine piece of art where the cars plays a secondary purpose. A driver (Clive Owen) is hired to keep surveillance on a movie star's wife, and begins to find himself emotionally involved.OK, the plot is standard film noir material, but it is Wong Kar-Wai's elliptical visual style juxtaposed with melancholy music that creates an unforgettable mood piece that rejuvenates noir cliches. A perfect example is when Clive Owen looks into the wife's face and suddenly realize why she's attempting to leave her husband. It's just a simple understated shot that would be absolutely beautiful until you realize what the camera is focusing on.This is a short film that a viewer would wish to be a full-length feature to stay in the sad stylish world that it has created. Now how many car commercials can claim that?

So, this third installment in the "The Hire" series doesn't have any hard core car chases and the cars don't even get damaged, at all! But the cars are there, and the story makes up for the lack of action.I won't get into details, because they would give away much of the film. But, here's an incredibly brief synopsis - The driver is hired to follow an actors girlfriend out of paranoia (her in the Z3 roadster and him in the 330 ci) but along the way, we see the story take a brutal turn and we get to see the driver have a heart, for the first time.Being halfway through the series, and taking into account what came before and after it, this is a nice break in the adrenaline that will pull on your heart-strings more than your passion for the cars and the speed, but you'll still love it.