He sits behind the wheel of a car, his face exuding a cool and impenetrable confidence only his eyes can betray. His name isn’t important, and all that matters is the time he gives you to do your thing. If you’re back in 5 minutes, he’s all yours. If you’re a second late, he’s gone and he ain’t looking back. Outside of his getaway driving career, he appears to maintain that same level of emotional coolness wherever he goes. After this character is established, I kept wondering what he would like when he lost his cool. Let’s face it; no one can stay that controlled forever.
I went into “Drive” thinking it would be a remake of Walter Hill’s “The Driver” which had Ryan O’Neill as another nameless character who drove more than he talked. “Drive” also has a Ryan in the lead role, the one with the last name of Gosling. Both these men have as much dialogue as Arnold Schwarzenegger did in “The Terminator,” and while we can’t condone what they do, you have to admire how well they do it.
“Drive” turns out to be its own thing and is one of the few action movies to come out this past year that focuses as much on character as it does on action and spectacle. While it feels like an odd to Michael Mann’s “Heat” or “Thief” with its neon-like credits electronic score courtesy of Cliff Martinez, this film does not feel at all dated in what it presents.
By day Gosling is a stuntman driver for the movies, doubling for the actors whom the insurance company doesn’t want to pay for if they mess up (and many of them probably would). He also appears to have car racing aspirations of his own which his friend and partner in crime Shannon (Bryan Cranston) wants to help him to realize in a way that will benefit them both. Shannon manages to find a financer in a Jewish mobster (Albert Brooks) who will offers support only if it will benefit him more than anyone else.
Meanwhile the driver starts taking an interest in his next door neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan) who looks after her son Benicio (Kaden Leos) while her husband finishes up a stint in jail. Both Gosling and Mulligan show a strong attraction to one another and stare into one another’s eyes like they were Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis in “Witness.” Of course, her husband Standard (Oscar Isaac) comes back into the picture and finds himself in debt to those he owes money for prison protection. Inflation can be a bitch!
Standard ends up being forced to rob a pawn shop to pay off his debts, something he doesn’t want to do. Having gotten friendly with his wife and son, the driver offers to help him get the job done by being his getaway driver, ensuring that he gets out safely and in one piece. But like every carefully planned heist a la “Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead,” it all goes horribly wrong.
“Drive” is not your typical shoot ‘em up movie where the good and bad guys are easily told apart from one another. It is deeply thoughtful and gives us characters that are far more complex than you could ever have expected them to be. Not everyone is completely heartless even after they show off just how cold blooded and manipulative they can be. What rules these men’s lives is business, and even if they don’t want it to, it cuts straight through love and pleasure whenever their own well being becomes threatened.
Directing this movie is Nicolas Winding Refn who won the Best Director Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for his work here. His previous directorial efforts include “Valhalla Rising” and “Bronson,” the latter being one of those DVDs I bought from a Blockbuster Video store that was closing down. Watching his brilliant work on “Drive” has me wanting to explore of his work and keep “Bronson” from gathering anymore dust on my DVD shelf.
Refn is not content with letting the viewer watch the action from a distance. He puts us right into the danger to where we instinctively duck when those bullets start flying. Those gunshots sound frighteningly real which intensifies an already suspenseful tale where the danger keeps rising throughout. The most violent scenes will shock even the most jaded viewers as certain characters get killed off in unexpectedly gruesome fashion. One scene has a character bashing in another that will instantly remind those of a similar scene of brutality from Gaspar Noe’s “Irreversible.”
Gosling is having a fantastic year with this, “Crazy, Stupid Love,” and the upcoming George Clooney directed “The Ides of March.” His challenge here is to maintain his cool exterior and still show a vulnerability that is not easily spotted. It’s in his eyes do you see a pain and longing for something more fulfilling, something that makes him feel alive. With his performance here, he continues his reign as one of the best movie actors of his generation.
Mulligan herself is a wonderful presence even as she plays a role she has quickly become famous for; a woman who wonders how much she can trust and support the man she loves. Be it “An Education” or “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” she always seems to playing the same person. But like those characters, Irene doesn’t need a man to survive on her own and finds independence in one form or another.
While Irene’s and the driver’s attraction seems physical, it becomes almost spiritual as it opens them up to feelings they are new both or which have been denied to them for the longest of times. Like Gosling, the acting she does with her eyes can speak a thousand words.
It’s such a kick to see Albert Brooks here playing a mobster, and he makes Bernie Rose as interesting as he is vicious. Having watched him as such a neurotic case in dozens of movies, you might expect him to be completely wrong for this part. Then again, he played another criminal to memorable effect in Steven Soderbergh’s “Out of Sight.” Seeing him mix compassion with businesslike ruthlessness reminds us of what a brilliant actor he can be. When he meets up with Gosling towards the movie’s end, it’s a fantastic acting moment where both actors have to talk with one another without their eyes giving away their true motives. You come out of that scene wondering how good each one would be at Poker.
Other terrific performances in “Drive” come from “Hellboy” himself Ron Perlman who takes a seemingly throwaway character like Nino (another Jewish mobster) and makes him very interesting and entertaining in a way few other actors could accomplish. Bryan Cranston, currently on a roll with the critically acclaimed “Breaking Bad,” makes Shannon more than the average schemer down on his luck. Oscar Isaac also succeeds in making Standard not just another jealous husband who can’t pull himself away from crime. In the limited time he has onscreen Isaac makes us care about Standard which renders his eventual fate all the more tragic.
“Drive” gets the fall season of 2011 off to a great start, and it marks an American breakthrough to remember from Nicolas Winding Refn. It doesn’t break any new ground in the genre it inhabits, but it is not easily forgotten when you depart from the movie theater. There are only so many movies from this past year you can say that about.
I also got to say that “Drive” has one scene I have been impatiently waiting to see in a movie. You know those scenes where Q shows James Bond the latest car he’s been working on and its infinite number of gadgets? So many other films have done the same kind of scene, but in this one it goes in the opposite direction. For the driver’s getaway gig, he gets a Chevy Impala. Why? Because Shannon informs him that no one will expect him to be driving something like that. For once the blandness of a car stands out more than the ones no one other than Bond or maybe XXX ever gets to drive. Sooner or later it had to happen!
* * * * out of * * * *
I went into “Drive” thinking it would be a remake of Walter Hill’s “The Driver” which had Ryan O’Neill as another nameless character who drove more than he talked. “Drive” also has a Ryan in the lead role, the one with the last name of Gosling. Both these men have as much dialogue as Arnold Schwarzenegger did in “The Terminator,” and while we can’t condone what they do, you have to admire how well they do it.
“Drive” turns out to be its own thing and is one of the few action movies to come out this past year that focuses as much on character as it does on action and spectacle. While it feels like an odd to Michael Mann’s “Heat” or “Thief” with its neon-like credits electronic score courtesy of Cliff Martinez, this film does not feel at all dated in what it presents.
By day Gosling is a stuntman driver for the movies, doubling for the actors whom the insurance company doesn’t want to pay for if they mess up (and many of them probably would). He also appears to have car racing aspirations of his own which his friend and partner in crime Shannon (Bryan Cranston) wants to help him to realize in a way that will benefit them both. Shannon manages to find a financer in a Jewish mobster (Albert Brooks) who will offers support only if it will benefit him more than anyone else.
Meanwhile the driver starts taking an interest in his next door neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan) who looks after her son Benicio (Kaden Leos) while her husband finishes up a stint in jail. Both Gosling and Mulligan show a strong attraction to one another and stare into one another’s eyes like they were Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis in “Witness.” Of course, her husband Standard (Oscar Isaac) comes back into the picture and finds himself in debt to those he owes money for prison protection. Inflation can be a bitch!
Standard ends up being forced to rob a pawn shop to pay off his debts, something he doesn’t want to do. Having gotten friendly with his wife and son, the driver offers to help him get the job done by being his getaway driver, ensuring that he gets out safely and in one piece. But like every carefully planned heist a la “Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead,” it all goes horribly wrong.
“Drive” is not your typical shoot ‘em up movie where the good and bad guys are easily told apart from one another. It is deeply thoughtful and gives us characters that are far more complex than you could ever have expected them to be. Not everyone is completely heartless even after they show off just how cold blooded and manipulative they can be. What rules these men’s lives is business, and even if they don’t want it to, it cuts straight through love and pleasure whenever their own well being becomes threatened.
Directing this movie is Nicolas Winding Refn who won the Best Director Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for his work here. His previous directorial efforts include “Valhalla Rising” and “Bronson,” the latter being one of those DVDs I bought from a Blockbuster Video store that was closing down. Watching his brilliant work on “Drive” has me wanting to explore of his work and keep “Bronson” from gathering anymore dust on my DVD shelf.
Refn is not content with letting the viewer watch the action from a distance. He puts us right into the danger to where we instinctively duck when those bullets start flying. Those gunshots sound frighteningly real which intensifies an already suspenseful tale where the danger keeps rising throughout. The most violent scenes will shock even the most jaded viewers as certain characters get killed off in unexpectedly gruesome fashion. One scene has a character bashing in another that will instantly remind those of a similar scene of brutality from Gaspar Noe’s “Irreversible.”
Gosling is having a fantastic year with this, “Crazy, Stupid Love,” and the upcoming George Clooney directed “The Ides of March.” His challenge here is to maintain his cool exterior and still show a vulnerability that is not easily spotted. It’s in his eyes do you see a pain and longing for something more fulfilling, something that makes him feel alive. With his performance here, he continues his reign as one of the best movie actors of his generation.
Mulligan herself is a wonderful presence even as she plays a role she has quickly become famous for; a woman who wonders how much she can trust and support the man she loves. Be it “An Education” or “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” she always seems to playing the same person. But like those characters, Irene doesn’t need a man to survive on her own and finds independence in one form or another.
While Irene’s and the driver’s attraction seems physical, it becomes almost spiritual as it opens them up to feelings they are new both or which have been denied to them for the longest of times. Like Gosling, the acting she does with her eyes can speak a thousand words.
It’s such a kick to see Albert Brooks here playing a mobster, and he makes Bernie Rose as interesting as he is vicious. Having watched him as such a neurotic case in dozens of movies, you might expect him to be completely wrong for this part. Then again, he played another criminal to memorable effect in Steven Soderbergh’s “Out of Sight.” Seeing him mix compassion with businesslike ruthlessness reminds us of what a brilliant actor he can be. When he meets up with Gosling towards the movie’s end, it’s a fantastic acting moment where both actors have to talk with one another without their eyes giving away their true motives. You come out of that scene wondering how good each one would be at Poker.
Other terrific performances in “Drive” come from “Hellboy” himself Ron Perlman who takes a seemingly throwaway character like Nino (another Jewish mobster) and makes him very interesting and entertaining in a way few other actors could accomplish. Bryan Cranston, currently on a roll with the critically acclaimed “Breaking Bad,” makes Shannon more than the average schemer down on his luck. Oscar Isaac also succeeds in making Standard not just another jealous husband who can’t pull himself away from crime. In the limited time he has onscreen Isaac makes us care about Standard which renders his eventual fate all the more tragic.
“Drive” gets the fall season of 2011 off to a great start, and it marks an American breakthrough to remember from Nicolas Winding Refn. It doesn’t break any new ground in the genre it inhabits, but it is not easily forgotten when you depart from the movie theater. There are only so many movies from this past year you can say that about.
I also got to say that “Drive” has one scene I have been impatiently waiting to see in a movie. You know those scenes where Q shows James Bond the latest car he’s been working on and its infinite number of gadgets? So many other films have done the same kind of scene, but in this one it goes in the opposite direction. For the driver’s getaway gig, he gets a Chevy Impala. Why? Because Shannon informs him that no one will expect him to be driving something like that. For once the blandness of a car stands out more than the ones no one other than Bond or maybe XXX ever gets to drive. Sooner or later it had to happen!
* * * * out of * * * *
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