A five minute window....

Rating: 9/10 (29 June 2012)

Driver is a man of few words who works as a mechanic for his only friend Shannon.
He moonlights as a stuntman in Hollywood films and drives getaway cars in heists.
One day, he helps his neighbour Irene, whose husband is in prison, and he falls for her. A few days later her husband is released from prison and they meet each other in the building.
Her husband is forced by the criminal Cook to rob a pawn shop to pay for the protection he had in prison, and driver decides to help him by driving the getaway car.
However, the heist does not work as planned, and now the driver finds he has to protect Irene from mobsters.
There really isn't a lot more to say about this movie. It's heavily influenced by 'The Driver' and other heist movies of the seventies.
But the genius that Refn has done, has made this feel so much like an eighties movie, and not just any, a proper dirty B-movie that was released straight to video.
from the soundtrack, to the whole feel, it's easily the best looking film of 2011. It's exploitation cinema at it's most silent. You don't realise until after you have seen the movie that this harks back to the exploitation movies of the late eighties, maybe this is how Stallone wanted the Expendables to feel like.
Gosling is amazing as the Driver, saying very little, but doing everything he can to help his neighbour.
And then there is the violence. It's extreme in it's nature, but not out of place. It fits in with the feel of the film and Refn lets you see the carnage, but only in a subliminal manner. It's not Eli Roth type violence, more from the Gasper Noe school of violence.
it truly is a wonderful motion picture, and very accessible to all with different tastes in movies.
Refn again proves he is a wonderful film maker.