Drive

What it's about:
 
Our "hero", as it were, known only as Driver (Ryan Gosling), isn’t just a mechanic at a garage. Nor is he just an aspiring racing driver and movie stuntman. He’s also a wheelman; a getaway driver with a solid set of rules that ensure he never gets caught. His boss, garage owner Shannon (Bryan Cranston), uses his less savoury mob contacts to help him finance a car to get Driver on the race track. Meanwhile, Driver finds himself fascinated by the quiet and pretty girl next door, Irene (played by Carey Mulligan), and her son, Benicio. But his sweet and endearing relationship with the mother and son are interrupted by the return of her husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac) from prison. It’s barely a day, and he finds himself willing to help out Standard to keep Irene and Bencio safe.
 
What we thought:
 
The trailer for this movie doesn’t give us too many expectations. You think it’s some kind of getaway driver, badass gangster movie. You might think it’s a bit of a thriller, even a love story. You could even guess that it’s a racing movie with a sordid-past plot.
 
I suppose in that way, the trailer gives us a hint: We’re not really going to be able to predict anything.
 
Drive is a multi-layered, multi-dimensional and tightly knit plot. There aren’t any hastily thrown together occurrences for the sake of violence or action. It’s woven together like an intricate Persian rug, with every single action in the movie having a reason and a consequence. There is most definitely an air of mystery, but never of unintended confusion. There’s also shock so palatable it’s better described as disbelief.
 
And yet somehow, it doesn’t rely on cheap scare tactics or totally obscure plot twists. There are moments of bloody gore, but our bodies do tend to bleed profusely when maimed in one way or another. And that’s what I loved about this movie: I didn’t anticipate or expect anything.
 
The things that could make the plot seem like a typical crime-thriller formula are simply catalysts to a plot that’s far more complex. The solid rules and code that Driver uses; the presence of the innocent mother and child in need of saving – they’re tried and tested. But what’s great is that there’s so much more to Drive than love and violence.
 
For a good half of the movie, I almost didn’t think anything was going to happen. It seemed quiet – tense, but quiet. And what’s so artfully done, is that as soon as director Nicolas Winding Refn has you relaxed and into the rhythm of the film, it explodes, and doesn’t stop blowing up 'til the credits are rolling.
 
The unexpected casting in Drive is genius. Ryan Gosling hasn’t really done any action movies – granted, Drive is a lot more than a skop-skiet-en-donner, but he’s definitely not the obvious choice. Similarly, Albert Brooks as slimy mob boss Bernie throws you off. You know you’re not supposed to like him, but you find yourself warming to him. Because you can hardly believe you’re hearing Nemo’s dad ordering hits and stabbing people. And it’s smart casting because it makes you feel the way the characters feel about each other.

Gosling’s range as an actor makes him perfect for the very silent role of Driver, because it’s his facial expressions, his casual shoulder shrugs and what his eyes do without moving his face, that tell you about him. And what do they tell you? Well, that’s what’s even more perfect – not a lot. He’s supposed to be a mysterious, introverted character – calm, hard to predict – and you get all that from the way Gosling acts, and through what we’ve come to expect from him as an actor. Though the casting director used "unusual" actors for these roles, they were a perfect use of the actors’ reputations to garner the right response from the viewer. Very, very clever.
 
Some other cool inclusions, with less sneaky casting intentions, were Ron Perlman as Bernie’s volatile mob partner, Nino, Christina Hendricks as the sultry Blanche and of course Carey Mulligan as Irene, Driver’s neighbour. While Mulligan played her role perfectly, this one is no doubt stolen by the leading guy.
 
It’s great that no one’s really tried to classify this movie under one specific genre, because it’s exactly that that makes Drive so fascinating. There are insane car chases that make you feel like you’re in the backseat being thrown around; there are sweet tender moments between a man and a woman, without any sexuality implied – and that’s so often relied upon in action movies; there is gory, graphic violence that you’d expect to see in a Tarantino flick; there’s tangible suspense that has your mind whirring in a flurry, trying to figure out what might happen next, just so you wont openly gasp in a full cinema. It’s an action-filled movie with a dramatic-thriller plot, sprinkled with romance and a few short-lived moments of humour.
 
As if you needed more reason to see Drive, it has a very cool synthy 80s sound in what’s a fantastically consistent soundtrack, matched to a perfectly constructed score. Some people may even want to see it just for that.
 
Yes, it’s this movie is surrounded with Oscar buzz and I may have scared you off with tales of multi-dimensional plots and phenomenal, existential acting. But those Oscar-worthy traits don’t make Drive some moody, art film in which nothing happens and everything changes.

It’s moody, damn straight. But it’s exciting, it’s fun, it’s funny at times – in short, it’s refreshing. I haven’t seen anything like it. And if you’re not a Gosling fan now, you most certainly will be after this.