Cool? Yes, but that does not save it

Rating: 2/10 (31 August 2012)

2 out of 5 stars
Do we need another overrated Hollywood production that provides nothing but a sensation of coolness? Our beloved audiences, after all, have been much in love with Inception and Black Swan the very year before. Of course, Drive does not sink to the same embarrassing level of pretension, obscurity and manipulation as those two; but on the other hand, there is not much to derive from this so-called "powerful love story".
Mind that there is a fine line to be drawn between a powerful love story and a foolish one. For the record, Ryan Gosling's Driver is that all-perfect guy who is, ironically, too timid, too shy (or too manly?) to take his innocent neighbor away her screwed-up husband (and why she married that loser is an unsolvable mystery to me – maybe it is simply there to make us feel desperate than ever for Gosling and Mulligan's characters to be together).
While any in-heat female (and zealous male) audience will no doubt fall prey to Gosling's stunning performance as The Driver, those who are able to see with the organ above their eyes will certainly not be satisfied. Every plot point is pretty much predictable; and if you don't really understand what is going on, do not worry. As long as the kissing and the head-blowing sequences are back to back, you will forget everything else. This flawlessly corny love story does not push the audiences to the edge but can still extract loads of sympathy from them. Christie Lemire even declared that Drive's "more about the questionable choices that drive people -- and, ultimately, the ones that drive them away" – as if the double take on the film's title is anything but ridiculously obvious.
The question is: Would Drive be so warmly embraced within the art-house circle had it not won the Best Director Prize at Cannes in 2011? I was fooled too, and I even included it in my list of Best 2011 Films initially. However, the difficulty with which I tried to find nice words to praise it for anything beyond its crazy 80s' stylistic flourishes speak to its emptiness. On a first encounter, it is easy to accept it as some kind of high-standard crime action film. Refn found incredible ways to make use of sunshine and night lights to lighten up his picture, creating a permanent dreamy state that, when combined with the minimalist style of performance and dialog, can easily distract the audience; not to mention the effective use of electronic music. However, all of these can hardly mask Drive's flaws – the film lacks a personality, it is not intriguing in any way, and much less deep. And while one can forgive the unbearably easy manners that Ryan Gosling's Driver holds his toothpick, it is much harder when Drive's values add up to not more than the very toothpick that he holds.