Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011)

[Anhedionisiac]

remake of THE DRIVER?

Like mfunk said, it's not. But I doubt very much the writer of the book (or for that matter, perhaps the screenwriter as well) wasn't at least inspired by The Driver.

[flyonthewall2983]

I'm getting a vibe similar to Thief from this.

[prokosch]

I'm getting a vibe similar to Thief from this.

Big time; I've been waiting for someone to reference that in pre-release writings. Seems that has to be a reference point, right down to the typeface on the poster and the music selections.

[flyonthewall2983]

Michael Mann's influence is all over this. That first clip reminded a few people here of Heat but I'd wager to say there's quite a bit of Collateral in it as well. But in a more substantive way, some of the character archetypes are similar to Thief. Albert Brooks as parallel to Robert Prosky's character, and Bryan Cranston to Willie Nelson's. Not so much with the lead however, it's pretty clear Gosling's guy will play as more heroic than Caan's more hardened criminal.

[prokosch]

Truth. I've been connecting Brooks and Prosky in my head since I first saw the trailer. (Speaking of which, that performance by Prosky has to be one of my favorites of the entire decade.)

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

I am glad others are getting a pre-digital Michael Mann vibe. It seems to be a more romanticized film than something like Thief where James Caan creates a family to create and image and illusion perfectly noted in the scene where he's yelling about any type of baby he'll adopt. This certainly comes with more the heroic and classically Hollywood film style of a man protecting his family (and from what I can gather, his surrogate family, right?). James Caan in Thief enjoys the freedom crime gives him and when he essentially feels like he's losing control of his world, he literally obliterates it. This certainly looks like it falls more into handsome leading man heroics, which isn't bad in itself, just different. Either way, I'm very excited and the billboards I've been seeing around Los Angeles look like stills out of the original Miami Vice.

[flyonthewall2983]

One thing that bugs me, it has the same freakin' tag-line as another recent critically acclaimed crime thriller :/

[swo17]

"There are no clean getaways." -No Country for Old Men

[knives]

It's a good enough tagline that I'm sure sharing won't hurt it (that said I haven't seen it much in reference to Drive but that might just be that I've been ignoring the commercials which are everywhere).

[Finch]

Slant interview with Refn

[LQ]

AV Club interview with Refn. I hope all youse go see Drive this weekend; I can't wait to re-watch it myself.

[flyonthewall2983]

I'm seeing it tomorrow. If Albert Brooks' performance can live up to the shadow long cast by Hank Scorpio, it'll be worth it.

[htshell]

I thought it was excellent. The music by Desire, Chromatics and Kavinsky fit the tone very well. I loved the palette of the film and how stylized it was visually. I thought it was an 80s film until a few cellphones came into the picture. I actually missed the first scene (got to the theater late) and went into the film skeptical, but it surpassed all of my expectations.

Cinedelphia has an interview with Refn as well.

[mfunk9786]

Jesus, go back and see it again for the first scene. Really. It's that cool.

[JMULL222]

Here's my review, please click over once if ya don't mind.

You get 5 minutes. He doesn't care who your robbing; or what your doing. You tell him where to pick you up, where to drop you off. He doesn't come in for the job, and he doesn't carry a gun. You get in the car; he takes care of the rest. On his time off he's a stuntman for the movies. His name is Driver. He drives.
"Drive" is a perfect storm of Hollywood. I sincerely cannot comprehend how the film got made save for some incredible trust from the producers in the extremely eccentric aesthetic choices made by the crew. Everything about it is audacious: the title cards done in a pink 80's font reminiscent of early Michael Mann films, it's unabashed feminine streak (shown in devoting large patches of time to straight-faced scenes of romantic frolicking), it's expressionistic lighting plots (which change without explanation by the second), it's electro pop soundtrack.
Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (probably best known for "Bronson", an out-of-control satire that made Tom Hardy's name before he hooked up with Christopher Nolan, though his doc-style "Pusher" trilogy and expressionistic "Valhalla Rising" are also more than worth watching) gives us his most precise film yet, matching the cool persona of star Ryan Gosling. His long takes linger for many a silent moment on Driver; allowing Gosling to give the best performance of the year with nary a fistful of dialogue. The 80's tint layered over the film evaporates into a noir-styled bloodbath as Driver's mind and actions become more and more debased; solidifying once and for all that the precision of the film is matching the precision of our character.
And this all works because of the people Refn surrounds Driver with. The supporting performances here could not be any better, everyone bringing something to this ‘fairy tale' Refn has crafted. If Driver is the White Knight then Carey Mulligan's character Irene is his princess; and though their sexual connection may be tenuous at best you never wonder for a second why he risks everything to protect her. Like the stories of yore, Mulligan's beautiful visage and quiet demeanor explains everything you would need to know about Driver's motivations. It takes serious acting chops to play an alluring character with such subtlety, but Mulligan reveals she has those in spades.
Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman also give awards-worthy performances as our villians, a producer (of action movies that "critics called European", in one of the films many self-aware, ‘celebration of cinema' moments) and a Jewish pizzeria owner, respectively. They announce their evil intentions the first time we meet them, like true fairy tale villains ("How do you know he's a bad guy?" Driver asks to Irene's son while they watch a cartoon. "You just know," He says. I don't think they were really talking about the cartoon) and their vicious performances live up to such hype. And this is all offset brilliantly by Bryan Cranston as Driver's boss, who reads very line with a fatherly intonation that tells you everything you need to know about the two's relationship.
Honestly, to give anything away about this story would be offensive; this is a film you deserve to go into blind. Not that there are any huge surprises; but Refn uses the fact that he is playing around with film archetypes to stage shocking scenes of brutal violence and then follow them directly with long patches of silence and contemplation (there's the "European" influence into this film that Brooks previously mentioned.) And while Refn gleefully messes with meta-touches by allowing his character to utilize ‘movie magic' (like world-class makeup, for example) against his enemies, his true interest lies in themes as complex as the connection between sex and violence (a daring topic that should be at the forefront, but seems off limits to most filmmakers.) We see how Driver's relationship with Irene shifts him from a cool mannered man living by a code (not unlike Alain Delon in "Le Samourai", a definite influence here) into a psychotic monster capable of doing anything to protect her. And Refn is always most interested in the scenes where this transformation is taking place.
"Drive" really could not be any better. The acting is impeccable, the action is not only reserved but magnificently photographed (look out for some classically framed ‘camera on the ground shots' right out of "The French Connection"), and the electro-pop soundtrack captures something about Driver's character that cannot be put into words. Nicolas Winding Refn was born to make movies about tough guys with toothpicks in their teeth, and Ryan Gosling was born to play those roles. Bring on "Drive II".

[flyonthewall2983]

Absolutely blown away, and everything in the post above me is spot on.

[Mr. Ned]

I got exactly what I expected, yet I wasn't blown away. It was certainly in my top 3 films so far this year, but I left modestly disappointed -- and I have yet to figure out why. The film, in all intents and purposes, was pitch perfect ...but maybe too perfect. I may see it again before the weekend is out to test its strength. Definitely a must-see for this year, though.

[Professor Wagstaff]

I was really with the film for about a half hour, particularly the opening scene, but more than anything because the film really did feel like some lost Michael Mann film from the 80s, from the scenery, the music, right down to the credit fonts. The directing is often exciting (with great photography by Newton Thomas Sigel), and I have to cite Cliff Martinez who has done some effective scoring between this and Contagion during these last two weeks.

That said, I felt the film was overly self-conscious and mannered as it moved along, basically summed up by Albert Brooks in his like about the movies he produced: 80s action movies that critics called 'European' but he considered shit. I was not prepared for the level of gore in the film which really turned me off to the film when I was still trying to give it the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this is par for the course as far as Refn's films are concerned (this is my first movie by him), but it surprised me how little I'd heard of this element except for a post by Jonathan Rosenbaum who really didn't like the film either.

[mfunk9786]

In terms of screen time, there is only about 2 minutes of gore in the entire film

[Professor Wagstaff]

Yes, by level I mean the depiction of violence as opposed to the quantity of it.

[knives]

Well the level of violence by itself is not an entity that can be used to judge the quality of a film. The most vile things on the planet may be in a movie and it can come out great while by the same token an absolutely wholesome film can be terrible and vice versa. There's no correlation there and the only reason to bring up as a negative in itself is as an empty potshot. Is there anything in this heightened level that harms the film beyond your own personal squeamishness or is it just that.

[Anhedionisiac]

but it surprised me how little I'd heard of this element except for a post by Jonathan Rosenbaum who really didn't like the film either.

Your comment piqued my interest and I searched via Google but found nothing. Could you please share what Rosenbaum had to say about Drive?

[John Cope]

but it surprised me how little I'd heard of this element except for a post by Jonathan Rosenbaum who really didn't like the film either.

Your comment piqued my interest and I searched via Google but found nothing. Could you please share what Rosenbaum had to say about Drive?

From this infamous comments thread:

I may be all alone on this one, but I found DRIVE thoroughly offensive and disgusting, and it made me reflect afterwards that Albert Brooks must be desperate for money, what with a family to support and all. (Too bad you can't outsource acting--or can you?) Maybe it's my old age, but as the years pass, I find the most repellent violence in movies to be the kind that pretends (or even half-pretends) to be moralistic and "sensitive"--maybe in part because it reminds me too much of our foreign occupations. In any case, now that I'm no longer a reviewer, I felt in retrospect that I was a fool for going to see this.

[tarpilot]

Haha, wow -- he also re-posted his review of Soderbergh's Solaris with a preface claiming that Contagion confirms Soderbergh's "bottomless cynicism." I have no idea how a film that has not one, not two, not three but 4+ scientists as major characters who act completely altruistically with little or no regard for their personal well-being can be regarded as bottomlessly cynical, but there you go.

EDIT: I should temper my above comment by noting that, of course, pandering to an audience with abormally positive characterizations can also be construed as "cynical", should one maintain that is Soderbergh's aim in Contagion, but that does not seem to be the sense in which Rosenbaum is using the word.

[Professor Wagstaff]

Well the level of violence by itself is not an entity that can be used to judge the quality of a film. The most vile things on the planet may be in a movie and it can come out great while by the same token an absolutely wholesome film can be terrible and vice versa. There's no correlation there and the only reason to bring up as a negative in itself is as an empty potshot. Is there anything in this heightened level that harms the film beyond your own personal squeamishness or is it just that.

The violence seemed gratuitous to me and frankly like it came from a different movie than the one I had been watching. I don't quite understand your leap in logic about graphic violence and great movies. I never said anything to imply that graphic violence couldn't be in good movies. There are many great films that are brutal. I haven't the foggiest idea how you made that supposition.