If Nothing Else, the Coolest Movie of the Year

Rating: 10/10 (5 March 2012)

The flat-out coolest movie released in 2011.
"Drive" stars Ryan Gosling as a Hollywood stunt man who moonlights as a driver for various sordid and criminal activities. One such "job" gets him in the tangled middle of a noirish mess, at the center of which is a crime boss played with chutzpah by Albert Brooks. Gosling's enigmatic figure is reminiscent of Travis Bickle, the character created by Robert De Niro in "Taxi Driver," but even more solitary and taciturn. And like Bickle, he explodes in violent expression when pushed too far.
Gosling isn't the only one who conjures impressions of "Taxi Driver"; the whole movie does, with a healthy dash of 1980s crime thrillers thrown in for good measure. The film is awfully and explicitly violent, and my one complaint about it is that the violence is so graphic at times that it threatens to take over the movie. But that one quibble is easy to overlook in the face of a movie that is so tremendously stylish and entertaining. The only other movies from 2011 that looked as good as this one -- and as much like a MOVIE -- were "The Artist" and "The Tree of Life."
The intensely likable Carey Mulligan co-stars as Gosling's love interest, and "Mad Men" fans will be pleased to see Christina Hendricks in a bit part, and one that's decidedly un-Joan like.
Grade: A+