Prime Video has set an October 28 arrival for Drive - The Pretenders, a German-language thriller-romance from director Sergej Moya, and the first trailer is now online. The film pairs a young race car mechanic with the sport's most notorious star in a fake engagement that both parties are using for reasons of their own - and, per the official synopsis, the arrangement soon threatens to bring down everything around them, including a bond that has stopped being merely strategic.
The setup, as laid out in the synopsis, is a two-way deception. He wants the reputation boost that comes with being attached to a famous name. She wants something far more concrete: a genuine shot behind the wheel. The engagement is a performance for the public; privately, it is a transaction. The synopsis adds that the lie escalates to the point where it jeopardizes everything the pair has built - and whatever has grown between them along the way.
Moya directs from a story that leans on the romance-thriller combination the genre pairing implies, setting a developing relationship against the high-stakes, image-obsessed world of competitive racing. Prime Video has not disclosed a runtime.
Lisa-Marie Koroll leads the cast as Sarah Jenkins, the mechanic at the center of the ruse. Amin Baahmed plays Dante Annunziata, the scandal-prone racing star whose reputation is the currency being traded. Gustav Schmidt appears as Ruben, with Mišel Matičević as Bronson and Lucie Heinze as Tanya among the supporting players.
The broader cast also includes Frederic Linkemann as Jack. Inka Friedrich plays Irene Jenkins, while Jeanette Hain plays Sofia Annunziata - roles whose shared surnames suggest family stakes woven into the central couple's story.
A familiar framework, a German-language production
Drive - The Pretenders arrives in German, and its premise - the manufactured romance that outgrows its purpose - is one viewers will recognize from romantic dramas on both sides of the Atlantic. What the trailer appears to be selling is the collision of that familiar arc with the paddock: a world where public perception is a commodity and a seat in a race car is the prize everything else is measured against. The title itself signals the theme: performance, pretence, and the question of who is driving whom.
The release date places the film on Prime Video in late October, positioning it as counter-programming for subscribers looking for a darker, more relationship-driven alternative as the streaming calendar fills with genre fare ahead of the holidays.
Cast and production notes
Moya directs a cast headed by Koroll and Baahmed, with Schmidt, Matičević, Heinze, Linkemann, Friedrich and Hain rounding out the ensemble. Prime Video has not released a runtime for the film.
At the time of writing, the title carries no aggregate audience rating on TMDb, reflecting its status as an unreleased feature rather than any indication of reception.
What to expect from the trailer
The trailer, now available, is the first extended look at how Moya balances the two halves of the film's identity: the romance between Sarah and Dante, and the thriller mechanics of a lie that keeps growing more expensive to maintain. The synopsis promises that the deception endangers "everything" - language broad enough to cover the couple's careers, their families and their future together. The film's supporting cast, heavy on characters with familial connections to the leads, suggests those stakes are personal as much as professional.
For viewers drawn to stories about ambition dressed up as romance - and romance that sneaks up on people who thought they were only playing a game - Drive - The Pretenders makes its case on October 28.
The trailer is streaming now on Prime Video's channels ahead of the film's release.
Source: About Amazon
