Destined to be a classic

Rating: Null/10 (28 September 2011)

I saw "Drive" a week after I viewed the British spy thriller "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" and two of the adjectives I used to describe that film - laconic and languid - could apply equally here.
The script is very sparse: the lead character, an utterly brilliant Ryan Gosling as the driver with no name and no history, takes an age to speak and then says very little; the love interest, superb British actress Carey Mulligan, is a superlative example of less is more when it comes to speech; and for long stretches there is simply no dialogue. And it is often slow, even at crucial times slow motion - but then there are explosive instances of brutal violence that remind me of the first time I saw "The Godfather".
It's hard to imagine many Hollywood directors being capable of helming such slow-burning dramas and indeed "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" was directed by the Swedish Tomas Afredson while "Drive" was directed by the Dane Nicolas Wining Refn. Here superb direction is supported by splendid cinematography from Newton Thomas Sigel who offers us contrasting night-time aerial shots and gritty street-level scenes of Los Angeles. Even the original music by Cliff Martinez enhances the tension in a complementary rather than showy manner.
"Drive" is a kind of urban western with the car as the horse and the Gosling character as either Clint Eastwood personality-wise as The Man With No Name in the "Dollar" movies or The Stranger in "High Plains Driver" or as good-looking Alan Ladd narrative-wise as Shane in the eponymous movie where a man goes to the rescue of a threatened woman and her child only to find that a man's gotta do what he's gotta do.
This is one of the most stylish works I've seen in a long time where even a silver bowling jacket - the constant garb of the driver - can look cool in a tale where the anti-hero's nerves are as steelish as some of the weapons utilised by the low life he has to encounter. This is such a terrific movie that I could see it becoming a cult classic.