page_title: Drive (2011 film)
section_title: Critical response
hierarchical_section_title: Drive (2011 film) / Reception / Critical response
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Nicolas Winding Refn au festival de Deauville
context_page_description: Drive is a 2011 American action drama film directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. The screenplay, written by Hossein Amini, is based on James Sallis's 2005 novel Drive. The film stars Ryan Gosling as an unnamed Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver. He quickly grows fond of his neighbor, Irene, and her young son, Benicio. When her debt-ridden husband, Standard, is released from prison, the two men take part in what turns out to be a botched million-dollar heist that endangers the lives of everyone involved. The film co-stars Bryan Cranston, Christina Hendricks, Ron Perlman, and Albert Brooks.
  Producers Marc Platt and Adam Siegel optioned the source novel after Siegel read a review from Publishers Weekly. Adapting the book proved to be challenging for Amini, as it had a nonlinear narrative. Gosling, one of Platt's top casting choices, eventually signed on for the lead, as he wanted to star in an action-oriented project. Gosling played a pivotal role in the film's production, which included hiring Refn as director and Beth Mickle as production designer.
context_section_description: Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 92% based on 261 reviews, and an average rating of 8.29/10. The site's critical consensus states, "With its hyper-stylized blend of violence, music, and striking imagery, Drive represents a fully realized vision of arthouse action." Metacritic, another review aggregator, gave it a score of 78 out of 100, based on 43 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
  It was one of the highest-ranked, and most-featured, films on critics' year-end top 10 lists. It ranked as fourth-best film of the year, behind The Tree of Life, The Artist, and Melancholia on Metacritic's tally of top 10 lists. Drive was picked as the best film of the year by: Peter Travers of Rolling Stone, Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times, James Rocchi of BoxOffice, Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out (New York), Neil Miller of Film School Rejects, Mark Russell of The Oregonian, and a staff critic from Empire magazine.
  The writers for the film magazine Empire listed Drive as their number one film of 2011. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film 4 out of 4 stars, declaring that Drive was "a brilliant piece of nasty business," and that "Refn is a virtuoso, blending tough and tender with such uncanny skill that he deservedly won the Best Director prize at Cannes." Travers also said, "Prepare to be blown away by Albert Brooks. Brooks' performance, veined with dark humor and chilling menace (watch him with a blade), deserves to have Oscar calling." The Wall Street Journal's Joe Morgenstern also praised Brooks's performance, calling his villainous performance "sensational." James Rocchi of The Playlist gave the film an A letter grade, and wrote that "Drive works as a great demonstration of how, when there's true talent behind the camera, entertainment and art are not enemies but allies." Rocchi placed Drive as his number one film of 2011.
  Movieline's Stephanie Zacharek complimented the film's action and wrote that it "defies all the current trends in mainstream action filmmaking. The driving sequences are shot and edited with a surgeon's clarity and precision. Refn doesn't chop up the action to fool us into thinking it's more exciting than it is." She also admired Refn's skill in handling the film's violence, and the understated romance between Gosling and Mulligan. Her score for the film is 9.5/10. Drive was Roger Ebert's seventh best film of 2011. In praising the film, he wrote, "Here is a movie with respect for writing, acting, and craft. It has respect for knowledgeable moviegoers." Like Zacharek, Ebert admired the film's action sequences, which were practically made and did not rely on CGI effects.
  Anthony Lane wrote in The New Yorker that Drive's violence was far too graphic, and this ultimately was a detriment to the film. Referring to the violence, he said, "In grabbing our attention, he diverts it from what matters. The horror lingers and seeps; the feelings are sponged away." Michael Philips of the Chicago Tribune felt similarly, and said that although he enjoyed the film in the early sections, it became "one garishly sadistic set piece after another". Phillips thought the film relied too much on "stylistic preening" and did not have enough substance. In 2014, The Huffington Post included Drive on its list of 8 Movies From The Last 15 Years That Are Super Overrated, with Bill Bradley criticizing the low amount of dialogue by Gosling’s character and writing that “Refn spends all 100 minutes trying to convince you that he has a cool iPod playlist.” Complex criticized the film for whitewashing the character of Irene, who was a Latina in the source novel. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a score of "C−"; this was attributed to audiences feeling tricked, having expected more driving action based on the marketing.
caption: Director Nicolas Winding Refn at the film's presentation at the 2011 Deauville American Film Festival
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