Drive is style over substance

Rating: 5/10 (20 September 2011)

Drive back in 2011 was hyped up beyond the conventional blockbuster. It came from a relatively unknown director but had Ryan Gosling in the leading role. Women everywhere had a substitute for their vibrators the day they saw this. This film unsettles me in a few ways, but first i will give credit where it is due. Winding Refn frames almost every shot with perfection, the cinematography is gorgeous to say the least and the film overall is edited to precision. Now that being said, I'll pour some hot water onto the ice cream cone character Gosling plays. And by ice cream, I mean stiff, and in the need of some licking. Being an aspiring filmmaker, I completely understand the concept of "show, don't tell." Now that being said, there are for sure some areas of this film where I was begging for him to say something. I recommend for anyone who saw this and enjoyed it, to watch Broken Flowers. In that film, Bill Murray plays a character that isn't totally different than this one. Except I liked Bill Murray a lot more. I have nothing against Gosling. He's a great actor, no question; but dude, would it kill you not to look constipated for one scene? Additionally, it would have helped to know what the f**k Cranston's disability was so that when he died, I actually cared. Instead it was more like "yep, saw that one coming." Carey Mulligan is a beautiful woman with a lot of talent, and she and Gosling made a nice couple. But if I was her, I would have steered clear of the guy because he came off as the quiet creepy type that ends up being a sociopath with no life. Gosling is given no backstory so we have absolutely no freaking idea why he does what he does and what motivates him. This doesn't help me when I'm supposed to care about him possibly dying. His character develops in a generic fashion in a generic "it all went wrong" film. I wanted to see him do more stunt car driving for the movies since that was technically his day job. Just one example doesn't cut it. This movie is style over substance as much as Sucker Punch was except there are no special effects in this film. I watched this a second time because I wanted to revisit the film after all the hype had died away and the Oscars were through. I found myself enjoying bits and pieces more than I had the first time, but my overall experience was the same. It is an OK film. And usually in my book, a 2.5/5 means it's forgettable. Well, it's kinda hard to forget a film when everyone's gushing over it like it's a low budget version of "The Dark Knight" (a film I adore). I'm not saying it's bad to like this film since I'm one of the few who enjoyed Transformers 2. I don't now and never will understand what people love so much about this movie. Everyone says "it's different" when it really isn't. It's a generic movie with Refn's touch. A love story in a nutshell. A really creepy love story. Thank you for reading and have a nice day. I'm gonna take a Drive.