5 minutes of action...followed by boredom and disgust

Rating: 1/10 (19 September 2011)

If possible, I would rate this movie a 0. I did not pay for my ticket, and I felt bad for the person who did for wasting their money.
The film opened with fairly repetitive music reminiscent of the 1980's, which could be OK, but wasn't really my thing. The credits were done in a bright pink unreadable font that was quite distracting and seemed out of place. It would have fit better opening a movie like 27 Dresses or the like.
After the opening credits, a fairly intense and well planned chase/action scene unfolded. And then the film dropped off a cliff into the abyss of boredom. As another review put it, the film was only 100 or so minutes long, but it felt around 140. The long pauses intended (I think) to be artsy ended up making the audience feel uncomfortable and awkward. The lead character literally only spoke about 30 lines in the whole movie, most of them 5 to 7 word sentences, or an "ok" or a "yeah" that came at least 10 seconds too late.
In the one scene as "Driver" and Irene are riding the elevator to the garage, he notices the mysterious man with them in the elevator has a gun and believes him to be sent to kill them. So what does he do? He pulls Irene aside and a slow motion kiss follows. The elevator stops and he proceeds to slam the other man's head into the wall, then repeatedly stomps on the man's face. One shot actually shows the man's skull being crushed and his face sinking in beneath the blow of the Driver's boot, blood splattering over everything. The entire audience let out an audible "Eww" and could be seen shifting uncomfortably.
This movie was a waste of money for the ticket, and the 13 million dollars spent on making it, not to mention the time of all the audience members. I very rarely watch a movie and say I would never ever consider watching it again, but I say it with Drive.
Artsy? Poorly done. Disgustingly violent, boring, and awkward? Yes.
This movie is terrible.