Gosling is stoic in this action crime story where there aren't too many good guys.

Rating: Null/10 (7 March 2012)

I wasn't quite sure what to expect in "Drive" but it sure wasn't what I got. Continuously interesting, mainly for the character low-key Gosling plays his ultimately very dangerous character.
Ryan Gosling is Driver, that's all we ever know him as. He works in a garage, he works as a stunt driver for movie-making, and perhaps most lucrative he works as a driver for criminals. He doesn't care to know what they are doing, he just gives them 5 minutes to get out, then get back in. With his planning, driving skills and souped-up plain Jane car he reliably gets his passengers to safety.
But that is only to introduce his character. The movie really becomes about his friendship with the young lady down the hall of his 4th floor apartment building. She is British actress Carey Mulligan as Irene. We (and Driver) find out she has a young son whose dad is in prison. Driver has a kind heart and becomes a surrogate dad until the real dad come home. And when he does, with a difficult task escaping the criminal element that kept him safe in prison, Driver offers to help him, to pull a big job that will forgive his debt.
Albert Brooks, usually the funny man, is a bad guy here as Bernie Rose. And his equally bad guy pal is Ron Perlman as Nino .
Not a movie for everyone, it has some very graphic violence, but overall very interesting.
SPOILERS: They do a job to steal $1Million that is being held temporarily at a pawn shop. Problem is the money is east coast mob money and a set-up gets the dad killed. The rest of the movie Driver has to figure out how to save himself and especially Irene and her son. He eventually has a show-down encounter with Bernie in a parking lot, Driver gets stabbed but is able to kill Bernie. He leaves all the money there next to Bernie, the presumption being when the east coast crime guys find out about the money they won't be after anyone anymore.