“I don’t sit in while you’re running it down. I don’t carry a gun. I drive.”
The H-Bomb: A movie stunt driver/mechanic (Ryan Gosling) moonlights as a getaway driver for various underworld characters as they do their various underworld things (usually robberies). He gives them exactly five minutes to do whatever they’re there to do, and if they’re even one second late, he’ll take off and leave them on their own. We never learn much about this driver, not even his actual name, just that he’s very good at what he does, and he’s a strict believer in minding his own business. He’s a loner by choice and only speaks when he has something to say, which isn’t very often, and the closest thing he has to a friend is his boss, garage owner Shannon (Bryan Cranston).
Shannon has a lofty plan of putting the driver on the racing circuit, where he believes, not unreasonably, that his driver will excel. He goes to his old gangster friend, Bernie (Albert Brooks), to borrow four hundred grand for a stock car, and after Bernie gets a gander of what the driver can do on the racetrack, he agrees. It seems that things are looking up for Shannon and the Driver, but then something happens… the Driver meets a girl (Carey Mulligan).
Her name is Irene, she lives on the same floor of his apartment building, and she’s taking care of her young son on her own while her husband is in prison. They don‘t exchange many words, but there clearly is a connection between them, and as the Driver spends more time with Irene, he even becomes a kind of surrogate father to her son. This makes things a little awkward at first when Irene’s husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac), is released from prison.
But before Standard gets the chance to really grill the Driver about the affair he may or may not have had with his wife, his old prison buddies, who he owes protection money to, come calling, wanting him to hold up a pawn shop. As a favor, the Driver agrees to sit behind the wheel of the getaway car. It looks like a typical in and out job that he’s done a hundred times before, and nothing could go wrong… famous last words.
Unfortunately for the Driver, nothing goes according to plan, and the fallout could have very violent repercussions for not only him, but for Irene, her son, and Shannon, as well.
I don’t think I’m overstating a thing when I say that “Drive” is quite possibly the best film of 2011 that you haven’t seen. I myself was a little hesitant to sit down and watch it, because after all the positive buzz I’ve heard about it on the Internet, I was afraid that it might have been over-hyped for me. I was dead fucking wrong. It absolutely, for me, lived up to the hype, and now I couldn’t be more happy to join the chorus in singing its praises.
Based on the novel by James Sallis, “Drive” is a tense, slow burner where the dialogue is sparse and the violence is fast and brutal. I’m talking point blank shotgun blast to the side of the head, fork jammed in the eyeball kind of brutality. It’s a hard R-rated movie with a stiff dick and a hefty set of testies, with real brains and a sense of artistry behind it, the likes of which we don’t see nearly enough of these days.
Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (“Bronson”, another bad ass motherfucker of a flick I highly recommend) does an excellent job creating the bleak, unforgiving world these people inhabit. It’s a world where the shit is stacked so high that no one can stay completely above it, no matter how hard they try. Refn gives the film a stark, modern Noir visual style, especially during the nighttime driving scenes, which is complemented perfectly by Cliff Martinez’s evocative score and his use of 80’s pop tracks at the beginning and end of the film. It has the look and feel of a Michael Mann film, except on a significantly lower budget.
Refn also manages to pull some tremendous performances out of his top notch cast. This isn’t really an Oscar movie, but the Academy shall forever live in shame for not recognizing Gosling’s turn for the award caliber performance that it is. What he does in “Drive” is the epitome of an actor doing a whole lot with very little. As stated, he has precious few lines in the movie, but he has a face that says so much that he really doesn’t need much dialogue. His relationship with Mulligan’s Irene has the richest chemistry of any I’ve seen in recent memory, and it’s one that’s built mainly on silent gazes. You can tell from his face whether or not he likes someone, and he does it in a way that is totally natural. Gosling is the poo, shame on you, Academy! Shame on you!
Also, shame on you for overlooking Albert Brooks’ terrific work in this. Bernie the gangster is the kind of character you would never even think to cast Brooks as, but he’s brilliant. The guy plays a bad ass… and he’s completely, one hundred percent believable. When he jams a knife into some poor schmuck’s throat, you will believe that he is the last person on the planet you would ever want to fuck with.
Bryan Cranston is also great as the gimp-legged Shannon, who provides a few laughs throughout. Even when he’s bragging about how he shamelessly takes advantage of the Driver, he’s still likeable. Ron Perlman gets a little hammy as Nino, a trash talkin’ Jewish gangster and Bernie’s partner in crime, but it’s still good to see him in there.
Now if all that isn’t enough to make you want to see “Drive”, then you obviously haven’t been paying any fucking attention. This is one instance where the hype got it right. It is one amazing, wild ass ride of a motion picture running on all cylinders. It may sound like a B-movie from the plot description, but the A-list talent both in front of and behind the camera help raise it to a whole new level of awesome. Don’t let this one leave you in the dust, check it out today!
