An aesthetic character study

Rating: 10/10 (2 February 2017)

If you dislike neon colors, brooding urban nights and 80's retro synths, you probably won't like this movie.
A friend of mine complained that 'Drive' was too slow. Well, it is a slow movie compared to 'The Fast and the Furious' but not when compared to other movies by Nicolas Winding Refn. 'Drive' has its car chases, its shoot-outs, its damsels in distress. But the hero of the movie does not deliver snarky one-liners, he does not run across showers of bullets or perform jaw-dropping stunts, walk away from explosions without looking back, nor does he reveal a heart of gold underneath a tough exterior.
In fact, he barely says anything at all.
Ryan Gosling really made a name for himself with this movie, but what kind of name, it's hard to say. The nameless character he plays is handsome, that's for sure, and mysterious and dangerous, but not exactly the kind of guy you'd want to hang around with. He's not the type of bad boy that girls are drawn to. True, there's a girl in the movie who is drawn to him, but she doesn't see the full picture like the movie audience does. Beneath the sense of mystery there is no adventure - there is sociopathy. This is a human being that does not function normally. Behind those puppy-dog eyes is a cold-blooded murderer. We never really make contact with The Driver, never really learn what actually motivates him. He is a mystery to such an extent that I heard a theory that he's actually not human but an invulnerable superman that travels from town to town. We humans cannot penetrate the surface of his cool, wordless stare.
The movie created - or resurrected - a beloved retro aesthetic, which I fell for to such an extent that I've collected all but one of the masks in Hotline Miami.