Beautiful shy French Bolero

Rating: 7/10 (20 January 2012)

In a nutshell, Drive is like Bolero, but at the end you send away the drums and you replace them with a triangle from France. Voilá, climax. Can't believe that after an incredible, methodical, beautifully written and acted tension buildup, the camera literally shies away from showing the climax (filming the shadows of the two fighters instead) and then, all we get is a hero blinking once to show us that he is still alive, yet unfortunately unchanged emotionally. Maybe I'm not French enough to appreciate the minimalism, but I just expected more of an inner breakup not just a hero driving into the sunset with a vague idea of how that spells justice. Isn't running away what he's done all along?
But even though I feel cheated out of a true emotional learning curve, the poetic stillness of this slow soul food movie still made for an extremely satisfying viewing experience which for me bordered if not crossed into great art many times.