A beautiful, meditative, and intense crime drama.

Rating: 9/10 (24 November 2013)

"Drive" is an action/crime film for those that have grown tired of the same repetitive stuff that keeps getting thrown at us. It is a quiet and thoughtful film, almost meditative. Ryan Gosling plays the Driver (his name is never mentioned in the film), a young man that works part time as a stunt driver and part time as a getaway driver. He decides to help out a neighbor and gets himself involved in more trouble than he expected. There are only a few action scenes, but they are incredibly well down. They are tense, exciting, and meticulously assembled sequences. The rest of the film is much slower paced but it works perfectly. It builds the characters and adds depth and an emotional element that other movies of the same genre lack. Gosling is superb as the Driver, his character is quiet and withheld but you can really sense the emotions he has bottled up inside. The film is directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, whose previous film, "Valhalla Rising", played like an existential Viking saga. "Valhalla" was visually stunning to the point that it was mesmerizing to watch, but its incredibly slow pace and lack of emotion made it fall short of being really good. With "Drive" Refn has found the right blend of pacing, cinematic spectacle, and character study to create a smart, moody, beautiful, and intense film. If this is the kind of film that Refn has in store for us in the future, then the future looks very bright.