Drive: Movie Review (No Spoilers)

By Michael Momper

I would love to tell you about an extraordinary thriller that is only 6 years old and extremely overlooked- Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive.  Crafted in an awesome and stylistic way, Drive is upheld just as much by its cast as its fantastic direction- a cast lead by Ryan Gosling and Cary Mulligan, and including Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman, and a delightfully villainous turn from Albert Brooks.  It is undeniably tense, thrilling, and graphically violent in a way that is even as artful as some of Quentin Tarantino’s best work.  Drive’s greatest strength is in its unique style; the scenery is beautiful and shrouded in glistening neon coloring, making the movie itself feel as slick and smooth as its fastest Dodge Charger.

                It is such an intriguing movie because it is so difficult to successfully combine arthouse filmmaking sensibilities with thriller and bloody action elements.  The fight scenes are pulpy, gritty, and aesthetically pleasing in their own right.  Part of what makes this blend so successful is Nicolas Winding Refn’s impressive knack for world building.  Shot in Los Angeles, Refn takes us through a whirlwind of ruthless and sleazy mobsters, led by the journey of a mysterious driver with no name and few words.  The driver has a nighttime job as a getaway chauffeur for petty criminals, and is so good at what he does that other avenues for his talent begin to open up for him.  In the first scene, we are treated to an incredibly tense getaway in which Winding Refn’s directing talent is on full display.  Colossal tension is created as the Driver ferries a pair of burglars across the LA streets and away from their crime scene.  A stare-down with law enforcement at a stoplight ensues, and the gentle stillness of the neon night is interrupted only by the roaring of engines and the screaming of intermittent alarms.

                Without a doubt, my favorite characteristic of Drive is its extraordinary use of silence and calmness as an antithesis to the gratuitous violence and fantastically choregraphed action.  It is Winding Refn’s most masterful touch- and one that is often overlooked in an age of movies that so often wish to drown the audience with banter, sight gags, endless characters, and overdone special effects (a perfect example of this is DC’s Batman V Superman, or for that matter, most Michael Bay or Zak Snyder movies).  Ryan Gosling is a perfect actor to play a driver who is extremely soft spoken and conveys a lot with his facial emotions- he leaves plenty of room for silence as he drives or sits in his car waiting for criminals to finish their task and rendezvous.  The best example of the power of silence in this movie is a holdup in which we find our Driver in the wrong place at the wrong time.  This heist, unlike most of his, takes place in the daytime- a gorgeous California day in a valley that is serene and secluded from the buzz of downtown.  As the camera pans back to Driver after the criminals enter their building, all we hear is the ticking of his watch and the delicate crinkling of his gloves.  The camera shows his face multiple times and the silence becomes more and more unsettling as we, along with the Driver, start to realize that perhaps something has gone wrong.  The only other sounds are footsteps on pavement, the dull hum of distant traffic, and the thud of doors opening and closing- only to have the silence suddenly shattered by gunshots and the ominous roaring of engines.

                It’s an extra treat to be able to see these incredible actors playing characters that are somewhat out of their wheelhouses.  Albert Brooks makes a bit of a jump going from Nemo’s father in Finding Nemo to a mobster that stabs a fork into a dude’s eye and finishes him off with a steak knife.  Bryan Cranston comes fresh off of the dark and unmatched Heisenberg in Breaking Bad and becomes a skittish, wimpy mechanic.  Ron Perlman may make a passable Hellboy and be even more perfect for a run at Planet of the Apes, but in Drive he embodies a ruthlessly indulgent Jewish gangster.  You can be whatever you want to be!

I must lastly touch on the perfectly paced character development of Gosling’s Driver.  Winding Refn creates a character that is certainly unsure of his future path, but ultimately very easy to empathize with.  After a crime goes wrong and Driver finds himself unluckily mixed up with an entire mob of brutal men, he starts to realize that he has no intention of making a big payload, but rather just wants a way out of the situation.  He is not greedy; he wants to move on with his life and give back to the mobsters what is due to them.  When there is resistance, he starts to realize the undeniable effect that past decisions have on his fragile future- but he is loyal to the people he loves, wants to do right by them, and has a gritty determination for survival.  The Driver is the perfect centerpiece to a movie with great action, passionate direction, and a visual style that is attractive as well as purposeful.