I DRIVE: a review of "Drive"

“DRIVE”
Based upon the novel Drive by James Sallis
Screenplay Written by Hossein Amini
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
*** (three stars)

I always tend to get a kick out of movies in which the full intent of the cinematic experience is laid out succinctly within the film’s title like Director Jan de Bont’s “Speed” (1994) or “Twister” (1996) or more recent fare like “Fighting” (2009) or “Faster” (2010) for instance. There’s no questioning in any conceivable way of what you are going to get if you purchase a ticket and sometimes that’s all you need. Now, we arrive with “Drive,” an atmospheric and brutal film noir from Director Nicolas Winding Refn, which flies highly upon its sleek style and does indeed aim a bit higher conceptually. But, despite the solid work, it does tend to unfortunately spin its wheels here and there once you arrive at the film’s second half. Yet, if you are in the mood for a dark action thriller that is decidedly off of the beaten Hollywood path (and if you have a strong stomach) then this is definitely the film for you.

The plot of “Drive” is appropriately simple and sinister but grows deadlier as the film progresses. Ryan Gosling stars as The Driver, an unnamed and extremely reticent Hollywood stunt driver and garage mechanic for the kindly yet crusty Shannon (Bryan Cranston) who also moonlights as a getaway driver. His rules for creeps and thieves are clear and simple. He does not carry a gun. He will wait for five minutes tops. If they make it within the five minute window, he will take them wherever they want to go. Yet, if the thieves are any longer than five minutes, they are on their own.

One afternoon after some minor grocery shopping, The Driver happens upon his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her young son Benicio (Kaden Leos) as they have a bit of car trouble. The Driver assists the twosome and soon, he and Irene begin a chaste romance which becomes complicated as Irene’s husband Standard (Oscar Isaac) is due for release from prison with plans to return home to his family. Unfortunately, Standard owes protection money from his prison stint to a thug know only as Cook (James Biberi) and one evening, The Driver arrives home to find Standard beaten to a pulp.

Fearing for Irene and Benicio’s safety, The Driver reluctantly agrees to help Standard pull off one final heist that would ultimately get Standard out from under Cook’s thumb. The heist goes disastrously wrong and The Driver finds himself in the ferocious crosshairs of not only Cook but another gangster named Nino (Ron Pearlman) and finally, crime boss Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks).

“Drive” is an existential crime fantasy that, while not quite of the same neighborhood as a Quentin Tarantino film, maybe lives a few blocks away. It is a minimalist film with scant dialogue and cemented with Ryan Gosling’s unnerving performance as The Driver. Gosling again shows that he is the real deal as his performance feels as lived in and as complete as the drug addicted high school teacher in the strong “Half Nelson” (2006) and the emotionally damaged young man in love with a blow-up sex doll in the too quirky for its own good “Lars and the Real Girl” (2007).

The Driver’s relatively clean cut looks and lithe frame are brilliantly juxtaposed with his ice-cold demeanor as at first glance, he does not seem to be the sort of person to house near psychopathic tendencies, albeit with a fairly rigid moral compass for right and wrong. Everything you need to know about The Driver is depicted upon the shiny silver scorpion jacket he constantly wears. Beware of The Driver’s sting.

I was so drawn to how a man who says so very little was always able to effortlessly draw people inwards and essentially confess all of their inner secrets to him. I especially liked the romance between The Driver and Irene as it is deceptively simple. It is so simple that I would not be surprised if many filmgoers felt that there was not much acting going on between Gosling and Carey Mulligan as neither of them speak terribly much dialogue and many of their scenes together consist of lengthy, moody pauses and meaningful glances towards each other. Yet, what Gosling and Mulligan have mastered within their scenes together is the sense of two damaged people not saying anything more than they absolutely have to solely because some things are better left unsaid and everything is understood. Everything we need to know is projected through their eyes, facial ticks and movements, body language and it was a treat to witness a fullness of performance, from two wonderful actors, that are accomplished with so little.

Like last year’s well intentioned but so-so “The American” (2010) and this year’s superior and kinetic thriller “Hanna,” I admired Refn’s ability to channel a European sensibility in terms of the visual style and deliberate yet efficiently intense pacing he applied to “Drive.” Composer Cliff Martinez must be given major kudos for his brooding and chilly electronic score, like “Contagion” (which he also scored) again recalls the classic 1980s film scores of Tangerine Dream. For that matter, “Drive” often feels like a lost film from the 1980s due to its aesthetics. Even the film credit font graphics are the same as the ones utilized for “Purple Rain” (1984)!

Ultimately, “Drive” is an homage as it honors Sergio Leone’s “Spaghettis westerns” of the 1960s for who else is Gosling’s character but an updated version of Clint Eastwood’s “Man With No Name” character? Refn also aims to honor Director Walter Hill’s urban westerns, which include “The Warriors” (1979), “Southern Comfort” (1981), the classic “48 Hrs.” (1982) and even another film entitled “The Driver” (1978), which also featured a nameless getaway driver as the films anti-hero. “Drive” also owes quite a fair share to Director William Friedkin’s ferocious thriller “To Live And Die In L.A.” (1985). But, to my eyes and ears, Refn’s film sits at the feet of Director Michael Mann and his endlessly innovative oeuvre which includes the crime noir dramas and epics “Thief” (1981), “Manhunter” (1986), “Heat” (1995), “Collateral” (2004) and his two 1980s televisions series, “Miami Vice” and “Crime Story.” Mann has built a career upon lurid cops and criminals dramas that focus squarely upon the fascination of observing reticent men, their professionalism, obsessions within their respective (and sometimes questionable) lines of work.

If you are going to bother to create a thriller that works as homage, then Refn cannot be faulted for setting his sights so dramatically high. But, when it was all said and done, it was not as supremely successful as I think he would have wished for it to have been despite his great effort and unquestionable skill.

The major issue I had with “Drive” was a bit like the one I had when I saw Director Joseph Kosinki’s ambitious sequel, “Tron: Legacy” (2010) this past winter. That film, while very striking and effective was sort of a one note experience as it not only celebrated the original film but also nearly every idea George Lucas placed into his head. It served as sequel and homage and absolutely nothing more, including a sense of Kosinski’s personality. While there is nothing inherently wrong with that approach, it does tend to leave me a little cold because after a while, I begin to wonder why I am watching a copycat experience when I could be watching the real deal?

For me, “Drive” suffered the same fate. Frankly, as talented as Refn is, and he is very talented, if Sergio Leone, Walter Hill and especially Michael Mann never made any films, “Drive” would not exist. Plain and simple. From start to finish, I never really gathered a sense of Refn’s own personality and vision behind the homage, an element that would have made “Drive” truly stand on its own two feet, or wheels, for that matter. With the high critical praise being launched towards “Drive,” comparisons are already being made to Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” (1994). But, dear readers, I cannot even begin to extend my praise that highly for the following reason: “Pulp Fiction” presented to me a world in a way I had never seen it before. Quentin Tarantino’s entire career has consisted of the recycling of genre specific parts. But, what Tarantino possesses, other than the sheer exhilaration of movie making is his peerless skill as a writer. While always honoring the film style and genre in question, he always discovers a way to also transcend the genre, thus making each experience nothing less than “Tarantino-ian.” Seeing “Pulp Fiction” for the first time was like having a smart bomb explode inside of the movie theater as it essentially re-wrote the rules. “Drive,” on the other hand, is everything I have seen before with absolutely nothing new to offer unlike J.J. Abrams’ “Super 8” or the aforementioned “Hanna” from Director Joe Wright. Both of those films, which gloriously paid tribute to early Steven Spielberg films and crime thrillers respectively, knew how to honor, transcend and personalize their experiences and I had wished that “Drive” was able to do the same.

And still, there is another issue and that was the aspect of this film’s level of violence.

Horror, slasher films and torture porn flicks aside, I am typically not terribly offended by movie violence as long as it feels true to the story the filmmakers are trying to tell. But I have to say that the violence of “Drive,” while not present from beginning to end, is extremely grisly, graphic and sadly gratuitous serving for nothing more than shock value. One sequence set inside of a motel room features an especially horrific gunshot blast to the head that I felt crossed a certain line of good taste. Yes, “Drive” is essentially a 1980’s movie with an appropriately 1980s “money shot” but still, it was so graphic that it did take me out of the film for a bit and that particular distaste lingered throughout the remainder of the film. Another sequence set inside of an elevator also goes on long past the point had been made, again taking me out of the story. And yet, some of the climactic battles play out mostly in shadow and darkness and those scenes were surprisingly more effective than all of the buckets of blood and gore we had seen so far. If you do choose to buy a ticket for “Drive,” you have been warned. It’s strong and ugly stuff.

All that being said, Nicolas Winding Refn did swing for the fences and he cannot be faulted for that. But here’s hoping that for his next effort, he discovers a way to allow his own personality into the pastiche…and if he can tone down the brutality just a hair, he just may have his own classic on his hands instead of re-making the classics we already know so well.