Drive

Rating: Null/10 (18 September 2011)

Trying to give as little away as possible, I will tell you that Drive is about a racing car stuntman who also works at a garage. He is a quiet person and a bit of a loner, but he strikes up a friendship with his next door neighbour named Irene. Irene's husband is just getting out of jail and the driver character seems to bond with them all, especially Irene and her son Benicio. This leads to helping Irene's newly released husband on a robbery mission that goes horribly wrong and the rest of the film is a mix of a thriller and action film. I am going to say first off that I thought Drive was a very good movie, but it could have been a lot better. The first half of the film did everything right. The lighting and cinematography was haunting yet gave the film a lot of style as did it's music and Ryan Gosling's performance as the driver was excellent. The characters and the way things were done was also excellent. The first half of the movie we find Ryan Gosling's quiet character so fascinating because we know so little about him and we want to keep watching to learn more about him. He was a very well written character and Gosling gives a subdued yet passionate performance at the same time that is pulled off beautifully. The film had a haunting beauty to it, but also a sort of dread and mystery that I was really enjoying. The film looked great, had a great cast, music, cinematography, pretty much everything. So why was it not a perfect film? The first half of the movie was so interesting and innovative that I felt the second act really let it down. The second half reminded me like it could have come out of any action, or thriller film playing today. Yes, it was stylish, but at the same time nothing really new. When you take the beginning of this film that is so groundbreaking and new and then you use the second half to present a very familiar formula we see all the time, I just did not feel it worked. Drive is still worth seeing, but I should mention that some may be turned off by the violence. It is still worth seeing for Ryan Gosling's excellent performance about a mysterious yet troubled person who is really a deeply layered character that I just found fascinating. The look and feel of the film which reminded me of old cult movies from the 70's or 80's and also had a very European feel was very fresh and interesting and I really liked it. I just wish the second half would have gone a different way and focused more on the characters and the mystery of the driver character than going all gory and vigilante on us. It is still definitely worth seeing, but if the second half was as good as the first I could definitely call it one of the year's best films, but as it is I will say it is very good, but needed improvements.