Drive

Here I am, only two days out from Christmas.  What that means in terms of my life is that I am more than a little stressed, because of top of the season to be merry, my wife and I are also moving.  That equals a lot of fun and entertainment as boxes and packing tape are strewn around the apartment with care.  Today was going to be my day to review Bad Santa, but numerous trips to the dump and other such adventures left little room for watching the movie.  Instead, I will take a look at the 2011 movie Drive, which was directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and stars Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan.

There are a number of different ways this film could be described.  Some may call it a drama, others may call it action, others may say that it has thriller elements.  It really is a film that is very hard to put into a box because it has a very unique personality to it.  It is a heavily stylized film, that calls upon the feel and sounds of the eighties, especially during the first act of the movie when we are getting introduced to the main characters.  There are many segments of the film with very little talking, as the mood and tone is communicated through the shots, the music, and the faces and postures of the actors.

Gosling plays The Driver, a stunt driver for movies and a mechanic who also moonlights as a very capable, competent, and precise getaway driver.  We never find out his name, or anything about his past, which is intentionally left out of the story.  His employer, played by Bryan Cranston, who is a very mild father figure to Gosling does not even know about his past.  Gosling's character is very quiet, very calm, and never shows a lot of emotions.  This is not because Gosling does a poor job acting out the character, but because there is something off with the very essence of The Driver, a veneer of placid looks and expressions that cover up frothing emotions. 

While Gosling is of few words, he is not one of few actions.  What makes this film interesting is the extreme nature of Gosling's deeds as they are being carried out by an almost mono-tone soul.  We never get the sense that he is void of all emotions and is a sociopath, but that he is withdrawn from society and lets very little of his personality ever show through.

If described as an action movie (which the foundation of the film could easily be compared to), it is possibly one of the slowest moving out there.  Do not take that to mean that it is boring, however.  The entire feel of the movie seems to mirror the personality of The Driver, making it paced calmly and purposefully with a lot of underlying emotion.  When the action does take place, it is very much to the point, and eerily introduced at times with a graphic nature that bursts the bubble of the of the good natured film we may have thought we had on our hands.  Just as people in the movie became surprised at the manner in which The Driver acted, the audience shares the same emotion with the film which is the nice guy next door that has a secret violent streak to him.

A lot of people may have a hard time with this film because of the odd tempo it has, especially when contrasted by the graphic action elements.  The two do not seem to marry well together in theory, but as I mentioned, the movie is a mirror of the character of The Driver.  Perhaps you have met someone before who was shy and quiet, kept to themselves but scared you to your core when they were instigated.  This film is that person, and it melds the calm and the storm together in a very dramatic story with a unique style and feel like no other.

Rating - 3.5 out of 4 stars