Drive (2011) Review

The biggest misconception among the film going community is that critics always bash popcorn action flicks because they're simply too smug and too "elegant" (notice the quotes) to simply kick back and enjoy a movie. The truth of the matter (at least from where I stand) is that critics love the exhilaration of car chases, explosions, and gunfire as much as the next guy. What they want, however, is for all that action to have some kind of purpose, and when you get right down to it, a lot of the highest grossing action flicks out there don't add much meaning to their action. Just as an example, I wasn't too fond of The Fast and the Furious because a lot of the racing they did was utterly pointless, plotless, and therefore boring. However, once the recent Fast Five changed the formula of the franchise and made all that racing into a heist film, critics favored it more. These were the thoughts that were going through my head when I expected Drive to be a full-out action flick, but it turned out that the film focused more on the story than the action and worked even better than I had expected once I had reached that realization.




The film follows an anonymous driver (played by Ryan Gosling) who makes a living as a mechanic, a stunt car driver, and a criminal limo. He lives in an apartment in the same complex as a lady named Irene (played by Carey Mulligan), who's taking care of the son of her foreign husband, Standard (played by Oscar Isaac). The two end up meeting after Irene's car breaks down and the driver has to take her home. Once Standard comes home, it is almost immediately found out that he owes a debt that he could get killed for, so the driver decides to help Standard get the money so that he and the rest of his family doesn't get hurt.


If I didn't make this clear enough before, I'll reiterate: THIS IS NOT AN ALL-OUT ACTION FLICK. There are two, maybe three chases throughout the entire film, all of which are thrilling and well-photographed but only take up two minutes at the most. Most of the film is indeed drama. Anybody who was expecting this to be an action flick might find the film to be pretty sluggish, but I felt that the drama worked for one sole reason. It relied less on obvious exposition and expressions (facial, vocal or otherwise) and more on the implied emotions of the situations brought up. Most of the time, the characters give short explanations of their situations, and the rest is left up to ambiguity. I don't really mind obvious emotion in a film as long as it's well-established and compelling; if anything, that usually makes it easier for me to settle down and enjoy the film; but this is the kind of film that makes you think about what's going on, and I really like that.


On the whole, I would say that Drive is a satisfying arthouse film and a suitable entry into the Fall season for cinema. On top of the drama working in a unique manner, Ryan Gosling delivers a powerful performance as the character that is neither good nor bad, but rather a man who's simply trying to make it through this life in the industry he knows the most about. The cinematography and editing are very well-established, often times dissolving the actors' faces alongside a scene that moves the plot along, both aligned to not get in the way of each other. I especially recommend this to anyone who grew up with the car chasing action flicks of the 80s, as it's very reminiscent of such films as the score and the title fonts would suggest. It's not exactly one of those big action blockbusters that we had gotten over the summer, but I'll let you determine whether or not that's a good thing.