Artistic ambition held back by its source material

Rating: 6/10 (18 October 2014)

While Nils-Winding Refn clearly has "artistic ambitions," I don't find his films all that interesting in the long run (Bronson being the most compelling of the 4 that I've seen).
I certainly wouldn't hold up "Drive" as a shining example of narrative cinema. The story and characters are nothing more than sketches that have been utilized countless times before, and the only thing that made the film different, and the slightest bit interesting to me, was the director's cinematic style, which tapped into techniques (including a dash of subtle sensation) that are uncommon to mainstream cinema.
Refn prefers minimalist storytelling and slick styling to make superficial associations without providing anything of real substance to sink into or explore, opting instead for the typical Hollywood action pathways.
People have called "the driver" enigmatic and mysterious, but the truth is, he only seems so because virtually no information is provided about him beyond a few hints, and his strength is only demonstrated in his superhuman ability to out-think and out perform everyone else in battle.
The entire movie actually resembled a template for a video game or contemporary action comic book. Just consider what is given import in the film, as well as where, and through what it aspires to take us, moreover how it ends up: Neither story nor character development stray very far from the basic plot, and there is a long, violent conclusion (actually a series of violent incidents, one after another, that end up with nobody left).
If you want to see a movie with some similarities that actually develops an authentic story and character, with a real sense of place, try Bullhead, from Belgium. In fact, I would argue that the most interesting cinema these days is not being made in English, though it is only seen and appreciated by tiny minority.
...Drive does work in several ways:
1) because Refn creates his own brand of stylish cinema crossing in elements of mainstream cinema, combining "realism" and the "potboiler" with touches of Bergman, using an artsy technique that mixes long takes and silence with quick edits, sound, and fetishist action/violence in a way that wows the mainstream movie goer who has never seen anything like it, much less in the context of a genre film.
2) as a post modern, deconstructionist take on the genre film, a la Jarmush (think Ghost Dog, or the more deconstructionist Limits Of Control, which I hated), Cronenberg (Eastern Promises and History Of Violence), even early Tarantino and the later-day Scorsese. References to films like Mann's, Thief, are spot on, but there are also numerous references to Peckinpah (and Steve McQueen) in particular (The Getaway), as well as to Sergio Leone, which not only give it support, but make its contemporary take/styling more than just derivative.
I wonder what Godard would think of it? After all, Breathless was the first deconstructed "cool, hard guy" film to be made, more than 50 years ago.
Problem is, there was not one thing about Drive that I have not already seen dozens of times in American movies, beginning with the method-actor characterizations of the 50's and 60's (Brando comes first to mind, but carries right on down through Clint Eastwood, and just about every Hollywood action anti-hero).
The driver with no name, who rarely speaks: A toothpick in his mouth tough guy (with a sensitive soul) who looks like a GQ model, and whose only expression other than stone face is a glib smile that's supposed to mean everything he doesn't express... I already said that Gosling borrows a lot from McQueen, but he also uses James Dean and the young Mickey Rourke, who, of course tapped the young Brando.
Problem is, with each reincarnation of this archetype the meaning gets diluted until it becomes only a posture and nothing more, effective only in how it conjures up these other actors and their movies, while contributing nothing to the archetype it is alluding to.
Driver actually has no character of his own, only mannerisms, and there is nothing substantial about the film. It's only interesting in terms of all the movies and characters it references from Hollywood past, trimmed down and reliant upon familiar archetypes and stories, done up with a contemporary styling that blends art house cinema and Hollywood.
At times Refn's postmodern, playful stew works wonders, but there are also times when it backfires completely, such as when the Driver boards the elevator and kisses the object of his courtly love (who's nothing more than the object of a fairytale knight's devotion) for the first time before pushing her aside and not only murdering the hit man standing next to him but stomping him repeatedly as we hear his bones crack. How romantic! Cut to the loving, face of his Madonna as she backs safely into the garage.
Bottom line is that there was not enough "new material" to really captivate me much less enrich the bare-bones' story, and it ended up being not much different from all of the other movies built around dysfunctional males who can only find their way (and know how to survive) as warriors, by means of repeated acts of violence against whatever "bad guys" are threatening them, or some innocent member of society.
The only thing I really wondered about in Drive is what made Driver the way he was, or why everyone in the movie had to die except for the girl? Talk about self-defeating.... Half way into the film (once I fully understood what the director was doing) I could pretty much intuit everything that was going to happen scene by scene, moreover how it would be portrayed.
For me, despite a few moments of genuine brilliance, this film was ultimately not very satisfying, even somewhat pretentious.