Ryan Gosling drives...and silently broods (a lot!)

Rating: 6/10 (6 January 2015)

While "Drive" is a decent and occasionally brilliant film, it fails to live up to its rave reviews. The first act of the film (especially the opening scene) is excellent. However, the mood created by the first act quickly turns into an occasionally exciting but clichéd (and unnecessarily gory) bloodbath. I have no problem with graphic violence (it can be used for brilliant dramatic punctuation, like in "The Departed") but here it seems unnecessary and distracting, possibly to make up for the film's plot holes and all too familiar storyline. The tremendously talented cast is mostly wasted here, with Ryan Gosling (who probably has no more than 20 lines of dialogue in the entire film) spending most of the movie with the same dead-pan look on his face, staring pensively into space. Albert Brooks does breathe some life into the film as an unpredictably violent gangster, but it isn't enough to elevate the film's inert and meandering script. The film also fails to build on some intriguing premises introduced in the first act, like the driver's unexplained policy of only allowing his customers (usually criminals) five minutes during getaways. While I was initially blown away by the film's visual flair, in retrospect this film seems like a standard issue revenge movie pretending to be an art movie. It's atmospheric and brilliantly shot, but lacking in the deep philosophical explorations and dramatic tension that it seems to promise.