The bike messenger as action hero: Hollywood has been trying to pull off that trick since 1986's Quicksilver with Kevin Bacon. Didn't work then, and it's not working now. Still, you have to hand it to Premium Rush, which has the kinetic whoosh to keep you spinning. A game-for-anything Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Wilee, the top daredevil among New York's bike messengers. Hell, his bike has no brakes. And writer-director David Koepp sets us up for a rush in real time as Wilee makes a run from uptown to Chinatown to deliver a life-or-death ticket (don't ask). Wilee hits every obstacle, especially a cartoonish, crooked cop (Michael Shannon, going way over-the-top). Premium Rush features fearless stunt work that shames most computer trickery. Too bad I didn't believe a minute of it.

This review was updated on August 24, 2012.

“He Will Break Your Heart”

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."