Drive is an exceptional, different, and refreshing action movie that changes the game completely

Rating: 9/10 (26 March 2014)

I first saw Drive sometime around last November. Coming off of the Breaking Bad series finale, I was eager to see anything with some Breaking Bad actors in it. I was looking around on Netflix when I discovered this movie called Drive, which had Bryan Cranston from Breaking Bad in it. Now, my knowledge in the world of cinema isn't too extensive right now, as I'm just in high school. Without knowing anything about expected Drive to be your average action movie with fast car chases and stuff like that, and I hadn't ever seen Ryan Gosling in anything (except Remember the Titans but I never realized he was in that until recently) and assumed he was just this teen-girl idol from romance comedies. But everything I had assumed changed when I sat back and watched Drive.
Drive is about a Hollywood stuntman/getaway driver that forms a bond with a married woman and her family. That's at least some of what is happening. Drive was in no way your typical action flick like I had assumed. Drive is an intelligent, beautiful look into the character of this quiet, troubled driver and how he forms a close bond with this woman. It is very quiet and slow at times, but then violent and thrilling at other times. I would describe it as like a generic action flick and an art-house film combined into sort of a mix. This movie mixes the two into an almost perfect hybrid for fans of both. And this movie is very smart, impacting deep meanings that take a good amount of focus and keen attention to pick up on and decipher. It certainly doesn't spoon-feed you all of the information. It makes you thin about the characters and the plot in a very exciting and interesting way.
The acting is great, I really can't find a weak link anywhere. Ryan Gosling really opened my eyes with this movie. All assumptions I previously had about him faded almost immediately. He is a serious actor who possesses a very good talent, he actually distinguished himself as one of my current favorites. His supporting cast all give good performances themselves. The action scenes in the movie were all filmed very well in my opinion. And this movie is shot beautifully, the cinematographers and the director really put great detail and effort into making this a wonderful film to view. Another thing that I really liked about Drive was the music. They put the perfect songs and pieces in the perfect spots, and they used songs that don't sound anything like what I listen to but made me love them. The soundtrack to Drive is exactly what it should be and really complimented the atmosphere of what was on screen. I really can't complain about anything in Drive except maybe its slowness and quietness. I personally like it and thought they used it nicely, but people who are used to constant action and fighting will probably find a lot of the scenes to be boring, but I don't think it's a major flaw at all.
Drive is a very special movie to me. I wasn't in love with generic films before seeing Drive, as I enjoyed movies like Gran Torino and 3:10 to Yuma, but I definitely had never seen an art-house film. Drive opened my eyes to the possibilities of a movie. I think Drive is probably the first movie to really make me think deeper, and it was the first movie to introduce me to the artsy style of filmmaking. I think Drive is a great transition film from mainstream action movies into the world of art-house. Drive was the movie that introduced me to a greater way of thinking about and seeing movies, and it could do the same for other people.