Drive (2011)

Drive (2011), directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, 3.5 stars

A quiet young man (Ryan Gosling) who drives fast cars for mobsters and movie producers meets a lovely young lady (Carey Mulligan) with a small boy.  As luck would have it, they happen to live on the same floor of their apartment complex.  He and she are both attractive, so it is no surprise that they are immediately attracted to one another, but complications soon arise.  The lady’s husband (Oscar Isaac) returns from prison, and three (or four if you include the boy) gets a bit crowded.  Fortunately, they get along pretty well given the circumstances.  The husband’s got a good soul.  It turns out that he just fell in with the wrong crowd (Ron Perlman, Albert Brooks, etc.)  Now he wants to go straight, but the bad guys say “no way.”  Driver, the young man who drives fast cars, volunteers to help the husband take care of his financial obligation to the criminal element.  This appears, is his only way out, but it requires performing one last job for the mob.  He and the husband are sent on a mission to rob a pawn shop.  Sadly, the heist turns out to be a set up and things go south quick.  Driver, still a man of few words, emerges from the abyss transformed into one tough motor scooter and sets out to wreak vengeance on the bad guys.

This admittedly playful plot synopsis doesn’t nearly do justice to the film, which was highly regarded by critics and the festival circuit, winning a Best Director award and a nomination for the Palme d'Or at Cannes.  It has an overall feel very similar to a 1980s Michael Mann thriller, with a relentless pace that is propelled forward by the action, editing and Cliff Martinez's driving rhythmic score.  Many parts of the film, in particular the sequences that take place in moving automobiles, feel very claustrophobic.  An overall sense of anxiety results from the fact that very little dialogue is exchanged among the major characters.  The audience must seek out motivational cues in reaction shots, which may or may not reveal the very slightest furrow of an eyebrow. The selective use of slow motion creates additional tension.  Though the film certainly has its fair share of violent outbursts, the more extreme brutality takes place off screen, leaving our imagination (with the help of sound effects) to do the dirty work.

“Drive” is a well-paced, well-acted thriller that falls within and pays homage to a long line of laconic-outsider-metes-out-his-own-brand-of-justice films.  Driver may have traded in a steed for a sedan, but like the many slow-burn strangers in town before him, he chooses to live by and risk dying for his personal code of ethics.  And, also like his predecessors, when he’s leveled the playing field, it’s time to move on.