Stephen King's rape-revenge story found it's way over to Lifetime as an original movie. This could have been a perfect fit. The material is rather fitting for the channel. Plus Maria Bello and Joan Jett were brilliant casting choices. Unfortunately the results turned out pretty bad thanks to moments of ham-fisted directing, truly terrible performances from the rest of the supporting cast, and the mishandling of key elements from the source material. The novella this made-for-TV film is based on told the story of a mystery writer who ended up with a fractured mental state after being brutally sexually assaulted on the road. The effects her near death experience had on her mind paired with her natural intelligence and penchant for picking up on the small details allows her to punish those responsible. The tale succeeded thanks to the theme of empowerment and protagonist who was both believable and likable, therefore sympathetic. For the most part this is a faithful adaptation. It does a good job of following the events of the written version. What deviations it does have largely occur during the final act. For the most part I would say they were for the better. One of my complaints with King's story was that the rapist didn't really suffer. The movie fixes that and I loved the ending. Those parting words from Jett made me bust out in a big smile. So my dislike of this doesn't stem from it's original beats. It's the tone. Big Driver is just plain out and flat silly. Usually it's unintentional. The fault of dialog from the novella translating poorly to film (a pretty common occurrence in King adaptations), bad acting, and doofy directing from Mikael Salomon that causes some scenes to come off as cheesy when they should have been serious. However, it's clear that there are times where the movie wants you to laugh and that's a problem. I could have dealt with a few moments of dark humor, but this adaptation takes one of the biggest plot points from the book, the protagonist going a little crazy and hearing voices that act as her deductive skills, and plays it for jokes. While I see the absurdity in King's premise, this choice robbed the tale of it's power and is a little offensive. While I appreciate the movie not being overbearingly dark and disgusting like the rather infamous "I Spit On Your Grave" series, I don't feel it should be a mostly lighthearted affair and expect me to laugh at a side effect the victim is experiencing. Maria Bello and a satisfying ending aren't able to save the overall project because even they suffer from the questionable handling of the material. Bello's performance is constantly at the mercy of the writing. Sometimes it allows her to soar to incredible heights, capturing the intelligent, yet insanity-tinged nature of her character. Other times she's uncharacteristically awful as if she knows how terrible she's being fed are and can barely force herself to try. A big plot issue arises from Salomon failing to make it believable that the character wouldn't just go to the police thanks to his fumbling of key events. There are some highlights and good elements to Big Driver, but the whole thing just falls so short of it's potential. A shame as this could have been a big hit.