One of those rare experiences you get from an indie feature

Rating: 9/10 (2 October 2011)

I never heard of Refn. I've heard of Gosling. When I saw the trailer, I assumed that it was going to be a typical Hollywood action feature...I was wrong! In fact I was more pleased if anything and I was entertained on Refn's film basis which is more style than it was substance. Cannes definitely made the right choice in picking him for the best director award. I'm a big film buff and I noticed the little references he kept in the movie so he can film in respect to what other filmmakers did...especially the head stomp scene which he adopted from Gaspar Noe's extremely graphic and controversial film 'Irreversible' (2002). Forget about the pace of this movie when watching it because this film is like a slow time bomb just waiting to explode!
Gosling is a combination of what many critics say which is Clint Eastwood's iconic 'Man With No Name' character and Alain Delon's calm and cool 'Le Samourai' (1967) and I was deeply impressed with the character development which made him drive to do the things he had to do for Mulligan's young, cute and innocent maternal portrayal of Irene. The actor that I was most impressed with in this movie had to be Albert Brooks because you can typecast him for all the other movies he has done. Now he has a surprise in store for those who knew him as actor an back in the day.
The lighting was well done and I was impressed with the symbolism that brought the movie along to it's final conclusion. Watch out for the scorpion and the shadow's that Refn pays close attention to. This is what the movies main idea is. The soundtrack is amazing! Cliff Martinez has really tried to make this movie a fairy tale portrayal of Los Angeles and he does so beautifully with his synthesized score and careful selection of songs. I was almost reminded a bit of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City with the music but also because of its characters and the environment that Driver has to navigate and pay close attention to.
Definitely not for all tastes since the shots have been considered to be a bit pretentious and the pace is a bit slow but we can't help but let this pretentiousness slide away because it's an independent film experience we don't often get to see. This is so far my favourite movie this year and I encourage people to see it!