DRIVE: Ryan Gosling's A Real Hero

Let's face it. Action is one of the greatest genres Hollywood brings to the general public. And why not? It is riveting, full-blown and never fails to give audiences adrenaline-packed thrills! But of course there are differences in this genre. In essence, there is dumb action and smart action. Dumb action movies include Justin Lin's Fast and Furious, Neveldine/Taylor's Gamer, and of course, the grandaddy of 'em all, Michael Bay's Transformers series. Smart action movies include Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark, Duncan Jones' Source Code, and Michael Mann's Heat. But there is a new film to add to the smart action group, Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive.


You may be noticing I'm not posting the full trailer. I think it's a bit spoilerish to be bluntly honest. That and you'd possibly mistake it for Fast Five.

The first major thing I took away from this movie: Never again will I ever underestimate Ryan Gosling. Before I saw Drive, I saw him (as must guys probably do) as "that Notebook guy", the pansy, the hearthrob. In my particular case, he's also the guy who's taking Emma Stone away from me in movies (Crazy, Stupid, Love). But that's a different story. (Emma....) But in Drive, Gosling is allowed to show his badass side. His character doesn't even have a name, just "The Driver". How cool is that?

The film opens with the best subtle action set piece I have seen since the opening of The Dark Knight. You see The Driver laying down his rules (as you heard in the above video): "If I drive for you, you give me a time and a place. I give you a five-minute window, anything happens in that five minutes and I'm yours no matter what. I don't sit in while you're running it down; I don't carry a gun... I drive." Automatically out of the gate, the character is laying down the law. Immediately after this is the heist (which we don't care about) and The Driver sitting, waiting. He has a watch with him and its ticking is almost pulse-like. We're led to believe that the goons are not gonna make it and he's gonna drive off and leave them. But they make it in enough time and so starts the getaway:


The clip ends just as the going gets good. But there's a small taste of the quiet yet thrilling action that fuels Drive.

The Driver spends his days as a stunt driver for movies (although he has no name, on his police officer's costume a nametag reads "McCall", so I figured that just as well could be his name). He impresses his boss, Shannon (Bryan Cranston), so much that he mentions him to a friend of his, former movie producer Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks in a rare non-comedy role). Shannon says: "You put this kid behind the wheel and he can do anything." Shannon wants The Driver to drive a racecar that Bernie has just bought. Bernie himself is impressed when he meets the usually quiet Driver.

"I'm looking for my son, Nemo."

At the same time, The Driver meets a young woman, Irene (Carey Mulligan), and her son, Benicio who lives a few doors away from him at his apartment complex. He begins to feel affectionate for them as he helps her out with her constantly malfunctioning car and offers them a ride home. Here's a clip from the scene that details a bit of backstory of The Driver and shows his sweet sensative side:


She clearly feels the same towards him but she already has a husband, a soon-to-be-released convict named Standard. When Standard meets him, the tension is near unbearable. Is he going to be upset after hearing about how much time The Driver has spent with his wife? Unusually (at least in my opinion), Standard does not feel any anomosity towards The Driver and accepts him as a friend of the family. One night, The Driver finds Standard beaten and bloodied in a parking garage. Standard tells him that he is supposed to owe $20,000 in "protection money" from a guy he knew in prison. The Driver wanting to protect this family, offers Standard his help. Without spoiling anything, the heist to take $20,000 goes horribly wrong and sends The Driver speeding away from the caper with another car chasing after him: something that's never happened before (outside of the police).  The Driver is furious and wants justice. With his set of skills and a little attitude, he's gonna find out who is chasing him and end it.

This is one of those films that on the outside looks like a straight-forward action film with dumb, senseless action. But what differs Drive from Fast Five (like the dumb woman who is suing FilmDistrict will never recognize) is that it has a beating heart and soul. Its characters are infinitely more important than its action sequences (there are really only two decent car stunt sequences in the entire film). Gosling delivers a solid performance as The Driver. Mulligan is an actress I'm not quite fond of but she did well in this film. Thanks to Drive, I will never be able to watch Finding Nemo the same way again. Albert Brooks really went out of his way to break free of his comedy roots (his last feature film was The Simpsons Movie) and tried something new, showing his amazing prowess as an actor (his next film will be a return to comedy in Judd Apatow's This is 40). So, if you haven't seen this movie, rev up your engines and get out there! The clock is ticking.


Song: "Tick of the Clock" by The Chromatics