Excellent thriller with more than a hint of menace

Rating: 8/10 (1 November 2011)

Drive is a stylishly made look at the Los Angeles criminal underworld but without the humorous quips of a Tarantino movie.
Ryan Gosling plays the unnamed driver. He works as a Hollywood stunt driver but, for a price, he also is available as a top class getaway driver.
He also works in a garage and his boss (Bryan Cranston) thinks he can use his talent to get on the stock car racing circuit.
The driver seems to be the archetypal loner but when a young woman (Carey Mulligan) and her son move in next door he tries to help them out when he can. Her husband is to come out of jail soon but when he does he has debts to repay and his only chance to repay them is by taking part in a robbery. Because of his feelings for the ex-con's wife the driver offers to help. Inevitably the heist goes wrong and the driver finds himself on the run from some very nasty people.
At this point the slow moving pace of the first half of the movie changes and it becomes extremely violent. We can only imagine the drivers past history as he proves adept at protecting himself and inflicting pain on others. We realise that he is capable of doing anything if he feels he needs to.
The movie plays out to a suitably downbeat ending.
Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn unashamedly sets out to make a stylish and indeed arty movie. There are plenty of awkward silences and slow motion sequences, particularly when he wants us to know that the driver and his neighbour "FALLING IN LOVE".
There are a lot of reason why this movie shouldn't worked but it is so well written, shot and acted that I really enjoyed it.
The soundtrack is also brilliant.