This film was one of my most anticipated films of the latter half of 2011, from the very first trailer I had high hopes for this and that was at a time when i was expecting a Fast And The Furious kind of film. Drive is an outstanding film which is so much more than what people may be expecting. Please click read more and read my thoughts on this truly brilliant film.
!!!!!!!!!WARNING! PLOT SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!
When a film comes along that gets the critics raving about how 'it's a future classic' or a piece of cinematic art and it turns out to be a boring as chuff film about women’s issues or a broken family, sometimes they do get it right, case in point Drive, technically a gangster/revenge film with a pretty obvious exploitation movie plot. But what puts Drive into the above statements that make them work for this film is the fact that, yes it has a B-movie plot, but it takes that much repeated plot and makes it very original and very very good. You see for me the title, Drive, has two meanings, the first being the obvious, he's a driver who drives, the second meaning is that a specific part of the film causes this main character to set out on a journey, a road to vengeance, which drives his motivation for what's about to come.
It has that 70s crime thriller vibe to it, It has a protagonist, the Eastwood/ McQueen like anti-hero who finds him self in a situation in which he feels obliged to sort out. It's the kind of film you'd expect William Freidkin or Peter Yates to have made and reminded me of To Live and Die In L.A meets Bullet with a touch of Tarantino violence and some Jordorowsky existentialism thrown in. This film also has similarities to Walter Hill's modern day noir thriller Driver, which is also about a getaway driver and much like that film this film's main character is only known as Driver.
Ryan Gosling stars as The Driver, a Hollywood stunt driver by day and a getaway driver by night, he moves in next door to Irene (played by Carey Mulligan) who live with her son and who's husband is in jail. The driver also works as a mechanic for Shannon (Bryan Cranston) who asks mobster Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks) to loan him the money to buy a Stock Car for the driver to race, Rose agrees and loans Shannon $300,000. Rose's business partner is Jewish mobster Nino (played by Ron Pearlman). When Irene's husband Standard (Oscar Issacs) gets released from prison, he returns home to Irene, which kind of rubs Driver's nose in it, it turns out that Standard owes protection money to the mob and The Driver decides to help him out. The arrive at a pawn shop and it all goes tits up, the money they rob is ripped off from the east coast mob, and it was ripped of by Nino. Nino puts a hit out on The driver which forces the driver to retaliate.
Im not saying anymore because you need to see this film to really get the plot.
Ryan Gosling has always been an interesting watch, right from the first time I saw him in the film The Believer, where he played a jewish teenager who embraces the neo-nazi skinhead culture while trying to hide his heritage I thought this guy was good and he's turned out some pretty impressive roles too with films such as Lars And The Real Girl, Blue Valentine and Half Nelson but it's here as the driver that he joins the exclusive club of the cinema hard man, whose members include, Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin, Steve McQueen, Michael Caine (Get Carter People!) and Clint Eastwood. As The driver, Gosling says very little, but his performance comes from his movements, his expressions and stone cold coolness that he exudes from the opening scene. He is also a sort of superhero with a costume in the form of the silver jacket emblazoned with the gold scorpion on his back, and when it appears you know something is illegal is going to happen.
Carey Mulligan, much like Gosling, is also impressive in her role as Irene, the chemistry between the two is evident and when the shit does hit the fan, during a brutal but romantic scene in an elevator, her idea of who the driver is and what he does seems to make her change her mind.
Bryan Cranston who I know from Malcolm In The Middle as I have never seen an episode of Breaking Bad, is on form as Shannon, the garage owner and the man who helps Driver set ups his extra curricular night time jobs. He has some great scenes with Albert Brooks too. He'll be seen again this year in the George Lucas produced Red Tails.
Albert Brooks playing very very much against type as mobster Bernie Rose comes up trumps with this role as he shows that he's not just indie cinema's version of Woody Allen but also a much more versatile actor and can play bad just as well as the next guy. I've always like Albert Brooks too, he's done some great voice acting and made great little film called My First Mister, but every time he opens his mouth I can't help hearing this line of dialogue...
'Say homer you like these Loafers, no, well neither do I, you ever seen a man say goodbye to a shoe before'. Now the reason I put that line of dialogue up is because that was my first introduction to Albert Brooks, as Homer Simpson's megalomaniac boss in The Simpsons, Hank Scorpio, in the episode You Only Move Twice, and because I have I have watched that episode so many times that Brooks' voice has been burnt into my memory.
Ron Pearlman plays Nino, Roses's business partner and for once Ron isn't in a fantasy film, he's not covered in prosthetics but he's grounded in reality, albeit a Hollywood reality and he seems to enjoy playing a character that doesn't have to battle monsters for a change, or does he?
Now I am aware of Nicolas Winding Refn's work, The Pusher Trilogy, Bronson and Valhalla Rising but i've never seen all of them, but his work on this film is outstanding, his hold on the imagery, the style and the way he shoots certain scenes is fantastic. Drive has this almost dreamlike quality to it and much like Tarantino, the bursts of violence are graphic and brilliantly handled to a point where a gunshot is gunshot, it's not slowed down or lingered on, well apart from one definite rewindable scene but like I said the violence does not hang around, it's quick and it brutal and this makes it much more realistic to watch as a viewer.
Drive also has a bloody good soundtrack that uses 80s like synth pop which works really well for a film that rocks a 70s vibe with an 80s tinge. There's also some Riz Ortolani for the old school Italian horror fans and a great opening track by Kavinsky, a french new wave synthpop collective. To behonest it's a very John Hughes-esq soundtrack and i've read that Pretty In Pink and Sixteen Candles were a strange sort of inspiration for it. Even the pink brush script title evokes memories of those old high school teen comedies that Hughes produced in the 80s. It's a very modern retro film.
My Final Verdict.
Knowing that Drive originally started out as a directorial effort for Neil Marshall and starring Hugh Jackman in what was supposed to be a Fast and The Furious like film, im kind of glad that version never came into fruition because Refn's vision is so much more than car chases and gangsters, it brings back the anti-hero in a film that doesn't rely on CGI or gimicks but relies on good old fashioned story telling and acting. I knew going into this that I wasn't going to get the High Jackman version, I knew this was going to be something different, something we've not seen since the late 70s, a genuine crime thriller, with a straight narrative plot and a film that doesn't glorify the mafia or leave questions unanswered and like I said, this is old school hard bastard film making. It's a shame that i've only just seen this in the second week of 2012, but if I had seen it a few weeks ago, this one have definitely been in my top 5 of 2011. This is the closest ive seen a film get to damn near perfect filmmaking in a long time. Highly recommended but if you're expecting Gone In 60 Seconds or The Fast And The Furious, I warn you, this is so much more than your average action film.
Glad you loved this film.
ReplyDeleteIt's truly a brilliant piece of work.
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