Film Noir meets Hammer Hardened Hero Maker meets Gangster Heavy Metal

Rating: 9/10 (19 June 2011)

Ryan Gosling brings down the hammer on that line where logic reason and self preservation become secondary to protecting what is important to you. There are a few moments where he doesn't just cross that line but obliterates it completely.
Beautifully crafted pounding action thriller with twisted humor and seriously hard core violence. Compelling tenderness from characters that are unsophisticated in the best sense of the word.
This film will go down as one of the best Action films in decades. Car chases that rival and extend beyond Bullitt and French Connection. Violence that bursts out of the screen like a horror film or a bad dream by David Cronenberg. Passing moments of tenderness that are drawn out until you are slowly pulled into the emotional world of the protagonists.
Something so powerful, especially when it works, is the use of sharp and dramatic Camera Angles in Drive that mirror the emotional moment of the story drawing you into the characters world.
View and angles often extremely low angled and tilted sharply upward, effective at expanding the feeling of voyeurism of being at the dinner table or in the adjacent seat, right in the room with the characters while safely looking up from some shadow or nook or cranny. Very emotionally transcendent cinematography.
Night footage was amazingly successful at capturing the range of light and shadows, on a technical level the audio and video were strong and assured. Not only the first robbery but all the way through the film right up to the final resolution of the plot, the night was a familiar environment for major turns in the story (pun intended).
I will return hopefully soon to expand on this review, but I had to write something tonight because this film is ten times more badass than any Transporter or Fast and Furious fare that is usually sold in their all too obvious packaging.
Drive leaves them all in the Dust.
This filmed was viewed on the Big Screen at the LAFILMFEST screening June 17th 2011