Laconic, but not brooding...glamorously narcissistic, with bursts of bloody violence

Rating: 5/10 (8 March 2013)

Ryan Gosling portrays a Los Angeles stunt-driver for the movies who, for reasons left purposefully unknown, moonlights in the evenings as a getaway driver for various local criminals willing to pay his fee (and finish with their business within the five minute time limit). After becoming attracted to his neighbor, a waitress with child whose two-bit crook husband has recently been paroled from jail, the driver is hired by the spouse to participate in a pawn shop robbery. Screenwriter Hossein Amini, working from James Sallis' novel, keeps his protagonist cool, quiet and in control--until a midway point in the proceedings when violence overtakes his life (and the picture). While Albert Brooks is surprisingly menacing as a financial backer with mob ties, and Gosling himself seems well-adept at stepping into the laconic anti-hero shoes of an action star like Steve McQueen, the film itself seems to be without a central core. It is buffed and shined to a neon-tinted glow, but it doesn't pulsate with life...and it doesn't involve the audience. ** from ****