This is the coolest film of the year. Nicolas Winding Refn’s neo-noir thriller is electrifying and Ryan Gosling’s performance as Driver, we never find out his name, is surprisingly great. Gosling plays a Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver in his spare time and keeps himself to himself. His rules for the getaways are “You give me a time and a place, I give you a five minute window. Anything happens in that five minutes then I’m yours, no matter what. I don’t sit in while you’re running it down. I don’t carry a gun”. He befriends his neighbour Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her son but when Irene’s husband is released from prison danger threatens his new friends and Driver gets caught up in a heist that goes very wrong.
Everything about this film is great, from the genius retro titles to the bassy electro music and the iconic costumes, Driver’s jacket and gloves will no doubt become fashion staples, to the use of turquoise in the set design. But Drive never feels like it is trying to be cool it just is. Gosling is outstanding as the sociopath/psychopath driver who falls in love and risks everything to protect the woman he loves. I am not a huge fan of Carey Mulligan but she is perfect as the vulnerable mother Irene who falls for her neighbour and she manages to portray so much emotion in such subtle facial expressions. Ron Perlman as Nino has some of the best lines in the film and Christina Hendricks as Blanche is suitably sexy, her slow motion walk in tight black leggings is the sexiest walk I have seen in a film for a long time.
This is a fast paced stylish film which will keep you entertained throughout. There are moments of extreme violence but it is elegantly executed and never feels gratuitous, Refn states that “filmmaking should be about the imagination and not necessarily what you see, but what you think you see”. Quotes like this demonstrate the intelligent approach Refn has to filmmaking and links him to great directors such as Hitchcock whose famous shower scene in Psycho (1960) allowed the audience to imagine the violence and fill in the gaps. The three main chase sequences in Drive are thrilling and the opening and final sequences are spectacular, most notably the use of shadows towards the end of the film. This eighties pastiche is certainly not cheesy and the ending should satisfy most people.
Drive has been compared to many crime films already including Point Blank (1967) and it does have elements of lots of classics particularly Taxi Driver (1976), but it is also a strong stand-alone film that needs no comparisons and will become a classic all on its own. This is very exciting film making and the soundtrack is on my Amazon wish-list already, go and watch this film you will not be disappointed!
No comments:
Post a Comment