Drive

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

Starring Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman, Christina Hendricks, Oscar Isaac, and Albert Brooks

It’s difficult not to have massively built-up expectations of this film, which by virtue of its international acclaim and grand showing at Cannes this year had promised to either be a cinematic triumph or a massive letdown.

At the end of the movie I thought the former and Martyn the latter. I left the house thinking we’d simply get boozy, watch Ryan Gosling brutalise a few people and do some fancy driving, have a nightcap, and call it an evening. Instead I was treated to an hour-long drunken tirade about what bollocks the movie was and a midnight footnote resembling: “I hope you write a balanced review.”

Because I am a gracious person and a conscientious friend, I am going to write this chronicle in call-and-answer format. In plain writing will be my thoughts about the movie and what I appreciated in it and in bold what I imagine Martyn would have to say about this being the shittiest film we’ve seen yet and why everyone involved in the production must die.

Nameless young Driver (Ryan Gosling) is a wayfaring stranger and strict adherent to voluntary simplicity working as a mechanic, stuntman, and moonlighting as a getaway driver for whoever pays the piper and plays by his rules. His fatal flaw is a soft spot he develops for neighbour Liz (Carey Mulligan) and her son Benicio (Kaden Leos). They become his link to the world and a chance at redemption, even though he would never ask for it outright.  When Liz’s ne’er-done-good husband Standard (Oscar Isaac) is released from jail, money-hungry thugs inevitably come calling and the Driver’s attachment to the family gets him in deeper than he expected.

The only thing deeper than expected in this movie was the stage of sleep I fell into.

In terms of genre, tone, and style, Drive had me from the word “go.” Director Nicolas Winding Refn stays true to his neo-noir influences, painting a bleak portrait of a shady and unforgiving Los Angeles. A cliché in itself, granted: gritty realism is the name of the game here, and Refn has it down pat. Film-noir has never been a world megalomaniac villains, superhuman ass-kickers, or black-and-white morality and loyalties. It is about a hapless player unable to insulate himself from disaster. It is about survival of the fittest in a world that punishes error swiftly and brutally. When your back is against the wall morality goes right out the window. This sense of helplessness is conveyed perfectly not only in the Driver’s quiet and violent determination but also in Albert Brooks’ against-type crime boss Bernie Rose, a villain who is fearsome and lethal by necessity, not by choice or out of sadism.

Oh please! Only an American could have made this movie. It tries so hard to be European – whatever the fuck that means anymore – but fails miserably. The most European thing about it was that there were pizzas in a scene or two. The sparse dialogue and dark shots of Los Angeles are meant to telegraph some sort of depth but frankly I’ve been in deeper swimming pools. Film-noir? More like film-shit.

As an avowed fan of the lone gunman mystique, Ryan Gosling roped me in as the stoic, mysterious, steely-eyed anti-hero, joining the ranks of Alain Delon’s Samourai, George Clooney’s American, and Forest Whitaker’s Ghost Dog in an immutable canon of strong, silent, deadly protagonists. He is a sly actor with a profound understanding of the genre and he walks the line between protector and destroyer in flawless, compelling form.

Gosling: Moody when he should have been nudie

Christ on a bike! That wasn’t acting. He smirks and grunts his way through this movie and he doesn’t even get his cock out! If this were actually a European movie, from France or Denmark or something, he would have gotten his cock out. I cannot believe I paid 12 quid to see Ryan Gosling wearing a fucking scorpion jacket for two hours.

Refn’s sparing, tactical use of action, sound, and violence is nothing short of masterful. For a crime thriller, the first hour of Drive is remarkably uneventful, although not without purpose. Ever so carefully, Refn builds and aura of menace an impending catastrophe, a powder keg of nefarious alliances and blood money threatening to explode at any minute. The tension in this movie is drawn out like a tightrope and Refn milks it by dropping long periods of ominous silence in the middle of Drive’s heist scenes, making palpable the trepidation of the characters involved.

Not a single good car chase in the whole bloody movie! They should have called it Parked. I have never before in my life fallen asleep in a movie and I nodded off completely in the first 10 minutes of this one, during that whole opening “car chase” scene.

You were drunk.

I wasn’t! I wasn’t even tired. As an action movie this blows more pole than Liam Fox in a room full of Scottish underclassmen. You’re a cowbag.

Stop. Hammertime.

While the movie is shockingly brutal, it is so in short jabs, just enough to allow the audience to understand the lengths to which the Driver and his nemeses are willing to go, and a disturbing reminder of the darkness that lies in all of them. As with all great storytelling, the threat of violence proves infinitely more effective and nerve-wracking than its overuse.

The violence didn’t work at all. What, I’m supposed to be impressed because Ryan stomps on a few people and gets his face covered in blood? Limp-wristed at best. It was as satisfying as watching a Hasidic porno.

To be fair, the music in this film was fucking awful.

So. Fucking. Awwwful.

Damage: 3/10 (Pre-movie: 1 pint Guinness, 1 measure Bowmore 15yo; During: 4 x 250 ml Grolsch)

Boozy Rating: 6/10 (A fantastic movie but there’s really no added value in seeing it drunk)