Drive

Grade: A

While the initial selection was mainly just a matter of timing, it’s still rather fitting that Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive would be the first movie I write about. What I liked most about Drive and something I love about film in general, is how it allows someone to show a vision of theirs that may not be particularly easy to see. What I mean is, not every great idea or great person is all that easy to understand, and really this doesn’t just apply to great things either. We have all had moments where we see something clear as day but for whatever reason we just can’t seem to convey our message properly. Often times it’s something simple like not being able to find the right words or another party just not being able to completely grasp your concept, but regardless we have all felt this way at some time or another. It’s these moments that draw us to certain films, music, books, and any other form of quotable/memorable material. Because through these things we often find the words we couldn’t piece together ourselves. Or the image we couldn’t create in our own mind. Or understand the concept we couldn’t previously comprehend. The ability to show and express these feelings or concepts is a large reason of why I love film and television so much.

Now of course you are probably wondering what all this introspective babble has to do with the movie Drive, and my answer for that is everything. Drive is exactly what I have been talking about the whole time. Think about this movie on paper: A hyper-violent, slow burning crime drama starring an actor best known for making girls swoon in romantic movies that plays a hardened and mysterious bad ass, and it’s all set to euro-pop/techno. That sounds like an absolute mess of a movie. Yet it all without question works, perfectly. I couldn’t imagine trying to sell people on the concept of this movie as it just doesn’t seem to make much sense. Clearly Refn has a vision for this that must have been hard for others to understand, until they saw the final product.

The movie opens with one of the best car chase scenes I’ve seen in a while as we establish Gosling’s character of “Driver,” and without any sort of analysis it’s just really cool. This movie could have easily coasted off that sense of being really cool looking. The driving scenes are sometimes chases that feature creative and fun to watch driving and other times moody, pensive moments that are in no hurry to end. Both are set to a soundtrack that sets the tone perfectly. It’s not even close to what I would call my type of music yet I instantly was looking up the names of the songs afterwards.

That’s not the only cool thing this movie has going for it either. There is also the violence. The sweet, sweet violence. I don’t want to ruin too much about the movie, but let’s just say Ryan Gosling stomps a guys face in…to death. And it wasn’t just violence for violence sake like you see too often in movies. Everything had a purpose and reason for happening within the context. The violence was also creative and impromptu in that it was more them using what was around them as opposed to just killing someone in a cool way because you can. It was very similar to the type of violence that has been hugely popular in Korean films recently. Nobody does violence and revenge like the Koreans, and they do a great job of making all their creative and excessive violence fit within a proper narrative context.

Again that is all cool and fun, but where this movie really becomes great is through its story. Like I said it could have been real easy for Refn to say “I have this fun movie full of great music, great action, and a phenomenal cast I think I’m good.” Instead he developed a character driven story about an anti-hero who more or less just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Everything else seems to fall apart around him as he tries to put things right the only way he knows how. It’s very much a modern day Yojimbo where the main character wanders into turmoil, that due to his expertise, only he can fix. Only instead of being a great samurai he is a great driver. Even the endings are eerily similar.

If you care enough to look for a flaw it can be found in some of the dialogue. Story wise it’s not the most original premise so it does lead to some cliché lines (there is a “he’s the best I’ve ever seen” snuck in there but it’s said by Bryan Cranston so it evens out). I only point this out though to show again how this movie could have very much gone wrong in the wrong hands, but instead it takes this and completely reinvents this classic story. It ultimately reminds us of why so many stories are like this, because when told right, it’s something we can all relate to.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn’t touch on the cast. This is one of the best movie casts from top to bottom in a long time. Gosling is great as the quiet and somewhat playful yet intense and violent Driver. Albert Brooks is terrifyingly realistic as the ex-movie producer turned crime boss. Carey Mulligan gives a typically solid Carey Mulligan performance. They also did a great job of getting talented actors from television as Son’s of Anarchy’s Ron Perlman plays Brooks’ business associate/pizzeria owner, the brilliant Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad fame is once again brilliant as Shannon the auto shop owner that the Driver works for, and while she wasn’t in it very long Christina Hendricks from Madmen is good too.

So far of the good movies in 2011 Drive was the first great one I’ve seen, and a perfect example of why I love movies.