Drive (2011)

Drive (2011)

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

I walked into a local movie theatre around 4:15 in the afternoon. Didn't know what I was going to see. I just wanted to sit in a dark, cold room for ninety or so minutes and ignore everything. I was tempted to get a few beers from the concession stand but I haven't been drinking for the last 5 weeks so I refrained. I asked the guy behind the counter how "Our Idiot Brother" was. He made a weird face.

"You should see that movie, it was great!"

I turned to my right and a drunken, middle-aged man was pointing at the poster for Drive. On first glance I thought of John Hughes due to the pink, cursive font. Then I looked at Ryan Gosling slightly resembling Bullitt era Steve McQueen and the tagline "There Are No Clean Getaways" (a reference to the Coen Brothers film No Country For Old Men). The middle-aged man gave me a thumbs up and walked into a theater. That was all I needed, an endorsement from a rough looking drunk who has probably lived twenty great movie plots...or hasn't done anything with his life.

The movie cold opens with Ryan Gosling looking out a window, his back to the camera, laying down his rules as a heist driver to a "client" over the phone (reminded me of the opening to Risky Business). We watch him perform the job with surgical accuracy for the next few minutes while police cars and a helicopter chase him and two unnamed thieves through the streets of Los Angeles. He finishes the job and walks away scot-free leaving the thieves in a sea of sports fans in which they could disappear into easily. The title and opening credits start. Helicopter shots of downtown L.A. and the "Driver" (his real name is never revealed) cruising through the city with shadow filling his face.

The Driver by day works part-time in a garage with Shannon (Bryan Cranston) and also as a stunt-driver on movies. Shannon, his boss, wants to set the Driver up with a full-time racing gig but lacks the capital to build the car. He turns to Bernie Rose, a Jewish mobster (played against type by comedian Albert Brooks), for help. Bernie's business partner, Nino (Ron Perlman) doesn't share his enthusiasm for legitimate investments and thinks the whole thing is foolish.

The Driver becomes involved with his neighbors, Irene and her son Benicio, when their car breaks down and is brought to his garage for repairs. For a week he drives them around, plays with Benicio and keeps Irene company. There is an obvious attraction between The Driver and Irene but it never goes beyond hand holding. Irene's husband, Standard, who was serving a prison sentence, comes home unexpectedly and resumes his role in their family. The Driver, unfazed, continues coming over and befriends Standard. Eventually, it's revealed that Standard owes prison protection money to thugs and his only way out of it is by doing a job for them. The Driver caring about the family's well being, agrees to drive for Standard.

The two storylines are expertly woven together by writer Hossein Amini (based on James Sallis 2005 novel) and the cinematography by Newton Thomas Sigel is crisp (who primarily used an Arri Alexa) and beautiful calling to mind such classics as Manhunter, Thief and To Live and Die in L.A. Like any good crime film it has it's share of violence, car chases, seedy locations and gangster dialog peppered with racial slurs but was able to transcend the genre with atmospheric sequences, a flawless soundtrack (not the throwaway radio hip-hop and nu-metal turds you're used to), engaging sound design and three-dimensional characters.

I never saw Ryan Gosling in anything I'd liked before but this film cemented him in my mind as a great actor. His silence and face said more to me than a whole Fast & Furious movie. I left the theater and didn't speak a word for hours. When art is good it has that effect on me. I went back and watched the movie again after 2 days of it's images ping-ponging around in my brain.

So...If you're into dumb things like being moved by art and getting inspired please by all means go see this huge European waste of time. On the other hand, If you're into 'splosions, hot babes, cool dudes, empty gestures, false emotion, ancient storytelling methods and tits that don't belong to anybody then stay at home and keep watching TV, s'better anyways.