Back in the late seventies and early eighties, manly directors were making manly films. They would have punched you in the chops and laughed in your face at the very notion of rom-coms and bromances.

With films like The Warriors, The Long Riders and Southern Comfort under his manly directing belt, one of the manliest men of them all was Walter Hill. Let's face it, even his name was manlier than most.

To reinforce his manly credentials, in 1978 and only his second film, Hill directed the seminal The Driver.

If you like driving, Los Angeles - with its sprawling network of asphalt - is the perfect place to do it. And if it's your career, then all the better. Perhaps having it as your name may be a step too far, but that's the only moniker that the Driver (Ryan O'Neal) goes by.

He is a getaway driver for hire, and he's pretty good at it too. So good in fact that he's turning out to be a thorn in the side of a police detective (Bruce Dern) who is miffed that the Driver has such a glowing track record of escorting robbers to safety. It's a record he plans on breaking, by fair means or foul.

He decides that he's going to set a trap for the Driver, by organising a bank robbery. With the bait set, all he has to do is wait. It's a foolproof plan for sure, or so he thinks, but the Driver's routes have a knack of taking him in his own direction.

If ever there were a film that inspired Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto gaming franchise, it would surely be The Driver. Hill, who also wrote the film, dispenses with the likes of giving his characters names and pages of dialogue in favour of a gritty, urban playground for Ryan O'Neal to drive around like a loon. The first main encounter with the police is like watching someone play GTA; a car is driving around the streets of LA as it tries to shake off the cops.

To say that the film was just an excuse for lots of impressive car stunts wouldn't be doing it justice. It's a film noir on wheels, with O'Neal's Driver seemingly falling for the quiet femme fatale charms of a character known as the Player (Isabelle Adjani in her first big US film), whilst being constantly hunted by the obsessive detective who wants nothing more than to get his man.

Hill's direction is difficult to predict. For instance, when the Driver is behind the wheel with a number of cop cars on his tail, the whole chase ensues without any kind of musical soundtrack. Try getting away with that now in a Fast and Furious film. The Driver puts his foot down and it's like we're along for the ride.

The dialogue is also pretty sparse too. O'Neal must have been rubbing his hands together when he was told that despite possibly having about only two pages of dialogue to learn for the entire film, he's in virtually every scene. That's not quite true however, as his stunt double features heavily, certainly more so than most. But as far as the audience is concerned, it's O'Neal they're seeing doing all the driving, so that was win-win.

The only one with real chunks of dialogue is Bruce Dern and he certainly doesn't waste them. He makes it clear from the off that if you're to share a scene with him, you will come off second best, and he's true to his word.

What Hill delivered with The Driver was an unapologetic paean to masculinity. Even O'Neal would have to concede that the stars are the cars. And it has to be said that the stunts still manage to impress; all are shot in camera, as CGI was still a twinkle in some nerd's eye at this stage, they could still take on more modern scenes in a one-on-one race today.

If you're a fan of all things driving and enjoy your driving films in particular, then you should buckle up for quite possibly the daddy of them all.