Friday, October 07, 2011

DRIVE




Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn
Run time: 100 min

That nameless driver is Ryan Gosling, and like numerous nameless characters in a movie (Won' Bin's The Man from Nowhere and Clint Eastwood's Spaghetti Western trilogy has precede it) he is a quiet loner that can burst into violence in matter of seconds.

Drive is not your usual car chase movie filled with sugary hip hop music, instead it has a European feel of things seeping slowly waiting to explode. The driver is a stunt driver in Hollywood who happens to work in a car factory and have an interesting side job. As a driver for robberies that can take the car as fast as possible to hide from the cops.

The driver meet his neighbor, Irene (Carey Mulligan), and her son. Her husband is in prison and soon the driver gladly take the role as boyfriend/father surrogate. Things are getting more complicated as Irene's husband returned and one of his side job ended in tragedy. Now the driver must do whatever it takes to protect himself and the one he loved.

Unlike Fast and Furious franchise or even The Transporter, although it has an eerie and effective action scenes, it doesn't feel like a typical action film. It feels like as if the audience will not know what will happen next and then completely blown away. Refn attention to detail adding a unique edge to this movie, from the Scorpion jacket to toothpick, the nameless driver surely got an attitude no one will forget.

You can feel that this film has the European touch and that is not wrong since Refn is a Danish director famous in art house circles. Refn doesn't even try to outdo Fast and Furious he just present Drive as it is, noir, brutal and honest.

Ultra-violent and ultra-stylish, Drive is clearly one of this year's best not to be missed.

No comments: