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| Drive, Refn, 2011 |
The Gist
Tight plot, solid acting, great script, curious characterizations, intense actions scenes, tasteful violence, and stylishly executed gore, these are the ingredients of the awesome sauce the powers Drive. With those in its engine, Drive propels itself into the realm of rare skillfully done and curiously entertaining action movies.
The Good
- fast-paced, beautiful cinematography, great narration
- solid acting with a great script to back it up
- remarkably entertaining for the amount of silence it has
The Bad
- the beginning chase scene has this very weird background music literally made my ears painful
Synopsis
The Driver (Gosling) works as a repairman at a local car repair shop owned by Mr. Shannon (Cranston) who was impressed by his driving skills. On the side, The Driver works as a stuntman and occasionally moonlights as a getaway wheelman for robbers. Impressed with The Driver's driving skills, Bernie Rose (Brooks), a businessman, along with his business partner Nino, a mobster, agreed to purchase a stock car for 300,000 USD for The Driver to race. Things however start to get messy as The Driver began to get involved with his married neighbor Irene (Mulligan) and her son Benicio. Soon, The Driver finds himself helping Irene's husband, Standard (Isaac), outsmart mobsters who he owes protection money from. This gesture of neighborly spirit soon ignites the fire to a bomb of grisly events.
Shut Up and Drive
Can I just excuse myself and say I've developed what we call a man-crush proper on Ryan Gosling for this movie. Seriously, Gosling outdid himself here. And to phrase it as a friend have put it, "Gosling did the as-is-were-is acting." It was as if he wasn't acting. It was so effortless and so effective anyway. It was like bland acting that finally found its proper spot in the world, like an idea that found its time. He was bad as Clint Eastwood, or as dashing as Harrison Ford without so much as an effort or a quotable line. He stood there with his bomber jacket, hair all combed, and killed people. He just had presence and it made the whole movie sing.
It's an Arms Race
What Refn did with Drive is reminiscent of a Tarantino film or something like an Eastwood. Both of which I enjoy greatly. Drive is classy and artsy and atypically cold and silent for an action film. It has guts but does not brag about it, nor did it need flashiness to get attention. It was an experience for me that I am liking a film with very little dialogue and whose main character is 1. unnamed and 2. bordering mute. But what it lacked in dialogue, it made up for wit and composition. The soundtrack spoke for it and so as the beautiful cinematography. It kind of brings you back to the 80s and makes you question exactly when the events in the movie happened.
A lot of the credit goes to Gosling's performance, true, but Cranston, Brooks, and Perlman also did well. Perlman was as every bit detestable as Gosling is every bit charming and worth rooting for. They both have their deep resolve and it was clearly fleshed out in the movie. Mulligan for all the screen time she had performed her role of damsel in distress well. In a sense, you would wish that the two end up together in the movie, especially near the end, and maybe it wasn't Mulligan herself or Gosling making you think so, but the way the movie has been so well put together that you wouldn't mind that most of the time, all the two lovers did were stand and stare at each other.
The narrative, well, it's dry, but the cinematography as mentioned above is worth noting and more than makes up for it. Drive isn't so fast-paced or dragging, it just speeds in the right direction with the proper amounts of Adrenaline rushes here and there. And those were also executed very well. The gore is not so distracting, but is tasteful enough to merit artsy status. The execution of the action scenes are also very fine and well thought of that they make your heart rush everytime there is.one. As for the ending, it was perfect.
In summary, how do I put Drive? Well, it's a movie I'd watch over and over again.
The narrative, well, it's dry, but the cinematography as mentioned above is worth noting and more than makes up for it. Drive isn't so fast-paced or dragging, it just speeds in the right direction with the proper amounts of Adrenaline rushes here and there. And those were also executed very well. The gore is not so distracting, but is tasteful enough to merit artsy status. The execution of the action scenes are also very fine and well thought of that they make your heart rush everytime there is.one. As for the ending, it was perfect.
In summary, how do I put Drive? Well, it's a movie I'd watch over and over again.
My verdict:
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