Drive is a movie that you haven’t seen before – a stylishly violent noir tale unfolding on a brilliantly filmed canvas.
Ryan Gosling stars as a stunt driver by day, criminal getaway driver by night. He hardly talks and doesn’t emote. Indeed, his character is listed in the credits as “Driver” and sometimes referred to in the dialogue as “The Kid”. He is motivated only by his pursuit of adrenaline rushes and the opportunity to do something good for a vulnerable mom (Carey Mulligan). Indeed, Gosling is superb.
But the real star of Drive is its Danish writer-director, Nicolas Winding Refn. The film has a noir plot but Refn eschews the shadowy black and white of traditional noir for especially vivid scenes of Los Angeles. For example, early in the film, Gosling enters a convenience store and the screen is filled with the garish colors of junk food packaging. It’s one of the most artfully lit and photographed scenes in the last year.
Drive abounds in nice touches. While being hunted by the cops, Gosling’s driver is listening to both the police scanner and a radio broadcast of the Lakers game; unexpectedly, it turns out that there is an essential reason that he’s listening to the Lakers.
This movie contains some extreme violence – violence that is intentionally extreme for its effect.
The cast is excellent, with especially memorable turns by Albert Brooks, Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) and Oscar Isaac.
(I admired Refn’s 2008 Bronson, the story of a Britain’s “most dangerous convict” who parlayed a seven-year sentence into 34 years (30 of them in solitary) by repeatedly taking hostages and beating up the SWAT teams that rescue them. Roger Ebert called Bronson “92 minutes of rage”.)
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