"Drive" Review

A Driver (Ryan Gosling) makes his money by Hollywood stunt work by day and the occasional get away job at night; he's good, the best of the best. He strikes up a friendship with a young mother (Carey Mulligan) whose husband, once released from prison, is targeted for protection money by vicious mobsters. The driver agrees to help him, but when things go wrong, he must go to darker lengths to protect his new friends...

Drive is an awesome film; powerful, brooding and at times shockingly violent, it is a slow crescendo of tension that ultimately comes to a satisfying, if slightly ambiguous conclusion. Nicolas Winding Refn has created an ode to the great movies of the mid-80s, noticeable by the titles of the film and the synthesised soundtrack by Cliff Martinez which never invades the atmosphere of the film.

Refn is aided by fabulous performances; Mulligan proves even further how good an actress she can be, while Bryan Cranston adds to his Breaking Bad persona with a crooked garage owner who makes more trouble than he realises. The film's protagonists are a wonderful mixture of brute force and bizarre, Ron Pearlman's more archetypal gangster matched by a unique performance from Albert Brooks, who shocks as a quiet psychopath.

But the film belongs to Gosling; his performance is quiet and thoughtful, rarely raising his voice or fists unless absolutely necessary. He oozes cool, particularly in the stunning first ten minutes of the film where we see him take part in a getaway job - the watch on the steering wheel,the police radio by his side, the streets of the city perfectly memorised. It's a wonderful job that shows just how versatile an actor he really is.

The film looks beautiful, wonderfully photographed and lit eerily with the lights of the city nightlife. The violence, when it happens, echos the violence in The Godfather - it is essential to the plot, no matter how sudden or shocking; one such example involving Christina Hendricks, who has a small but vital role in the failed robbery, a role that perhaps could have been a little bigger. But the violent acts move the story along, as the driver goes from helpful, potential love interest to Carey Mulligan's mother to the vengeful saviour we see at the end of the film. 

Drive is brilliant, evocative and stunning all in one; though it perhaps wastes a couple of the talents involved in it, and is a little too short (not often a criticism for a film), it is still a major production that needs to be seen.

8/10