Different, but not great

Rating: 6/10 (17 September 2011)

If Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction had a kid, this would be the result. Except while each of those was different and great in its own way, this one is not. It's different, but not great.
I walked out of this movie feeling like I'd just been punk'd by a bunch of fake reviews in this very site. But no, RT loves it, too.
Ryan Gossling plays a mysterious, very quiet person who, somehow, despite not showing any outward charm, any kind of personality, or anything like that which a woman might look for in a member of the opposite sex, manages to woo his neighbor next door, Irene, who, oh, just happens to still be married to a soon-to-be ex-con with debts plus interest due upon release.
Carey Mulligan plays his love interest, your typical movie damsel who enters a man's life with the intent of making it better but ends up doing the opposite. I don't discredit her acting here, though, she was one of the two people in this movie that gave a believable performance, the other being Bryan Cranston.
Everyone else was basically awful. Albert Brooks didn't even try to get into character. He has the personality of a used car salesman, but we're to believe he's a crime boss? Ron Perlman was an overacting ham. Christina Hendricks was her usual eye candy self who can't act and can't cry on cue, apparently.
But the on screen chemistry between Gossling and Mulligan is not believable at all. How could a woman fall for a person who has the personality of a tree?
That and the what seems to be total deafness of basically every off-camera person in this movie makes me wonder how much suspension of disbelief the director expects us to have. Despite gun battles being waged in apartment buildings with the front door wide open, despite the survivor standing there for several minutes, nobody comes along and asks "what the hey just happened here, and who are you?"
The fun parts of the movie are when Gossling unleashes his inner Bourne, but those are few and far between, too few and too far to keep the movie interesting.
In short this movie is pretty boring and tedious to watch except for small parts, the situations are implausible, the casting choices leave much to be desired, and the director seems to have demanded very little of those casting choices because that's exactly what they gave.
It shouldn't be called "Drive" it should be called "Park" or "Stuck".