Ryan Gosling
DRIVE (2011)
Cast
Directed by
Written by
Based on the novel by
Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
100 minutes
The Driver drives for hire. He has no other name, and no other life. When we first see him, he's the wheelman for a getaway car, who runs from police pursuit not only by using sheer speed and muscle, but by coolly exploiting the street terrain and outsmarting his pursuers. By day, he is a stunt driver for action movies. The two jobs represent no conflict for him: He drives.
As played by Ryan Gosling, he is in the tradition of two iconic heroes of the 1960s, he has no family, no history and seemingly few emotions.
Drive" is more of an elegant exercise in style, and its emotions may be hidden but they run deep.
The Driver lives somewhere,His neighbor is Irene, played by Carey Mulligan, that template of vulnerability. She has a young son, Benecio (Kaden Leos), who seems to stir the Driver's affection, although he isn't the effusive type. They grow warm, but in a week, her husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac), is released from prison. Against our expectations, Standard isn't jealous or hostile about the new neighbor, but sizes him up, sees a professional and quickly pitches a $1 million heist idea. That will provide the engine for the rest of the story, and as Irene and Benecio are endangered, the Driver reveals deep feelings and loyalties indeed, and undergoes enormous risk at little necessary benefit to himself.
The film by the Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn ("Bronson"), based on a novel by James Sallis, peoples its story with characters who bring lifetimes onto the screen, in contrast to the Driver, who brings as little as possible. Ron Perlman seems to be a big-time operator working out of a small-time front, a pizzeria in a strip mall. Albert Brooks, not the slightest bit funny, plays a producer of the kinds of B movies the Driver does stunt driving for — and also has a sideline in crime. These people are ruthless.
More benign is Bryan Cranston, as the kind of man you know the Driver must have behind him, a genius at auto repairs, restoration and supercharging. Most of the stunt driving looks real to me, with cars of weight and heft, rather than animated impossible fantasies. The entire film, in fact, seems much more real than the usual action-crime-chase concoctions we've grown tired of. Here is a movie with respect for writing, acting and craft. It has respect for knowledgable moviegoers. The key thing you want to feel, during a chase scene, is involvement in the purpose of the chase. You have to care. Too often we're simply witnessing technology.
Ryan Gosling is a charismatic actor, He embodies presence and sincerity, he has shown a gift for finding arresting, powerful characters. An actor who can fall in love with a love doll and make us believe it, as he did in "Lars and the Real Girl" (2007), can achieve just about anything. "Drive" looks like one kind of movie in the ads, and it is that kind of movie. It is also a rebuke to most of the movies it looks like.
Critical response
Drive received critical acclaim upon its release in 2011. To date, the film has a 93% “fresh” rating and an 8.3 average rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 234 reviews. From the Rotten Tomatoes' consensus: "With its hyper-stylized blend of violence, music, and striking imagery, Drive represents a fully realized vision of arthouse action."
The writers for the film magazine Empire listed Drive as their number one film of 2011.[97] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film 4 out of 4 stars, declaring that Drive was “a brilliant piece of nasty business,” and that “Refn is a virtuoso, blending tough and tender with such uncanny skill that he deservedly won the Best Director prize at Cannes." It was his top film of 2011.[98][99] Richard Roeper said that "Drive is an adrenalin shot to the senses. I love this movie and as soon as it was over, I wanted to see it again.”
Stephanie Zachereck of Movieline complimented the film's action and wrote that it “defies all the current trends in mainstream action filmmaking. The driving sequences are shot and edited with a surgeon’s clarity. and precision. Refn doesn’t chop up the action to fool us into thinking it’s more exciting than it is.” She also admired Refn’s skill in handling the film’s violence and the understated romance between Gosling and Mulligan.
The Wall Street Journal's Joe Morgenstern called Albert Brooks' villainous performance “sensational”.[107] “Prepare to be blown away by Albert Brooks,” said Peter Travers, “Brooks' performance, veined with dark humor and chilling menace (watch him with a blade), deserves to have Oscar calling.”[98]Albert Brooks won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor. He was also nominated for a Golden Globe.[108][109]
Salon’s Andrew O’ Hehir lauded Albert Brooks against-type performance as the film’s villain and called it “unforgettable.” On the elevator sequence in the film, which juxtaposes romance with violence, O’Herir commended it and proclaimed that it’s a sequence that “film students will be deconstructing, shot by shot, for years to come.”[112]
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