Drive (2011)

Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn | 100 minutes | drama, action | Actors: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Christina Hendricks, Ron Perlman, Bryan Cranston, Oscar Isaac, Albert Brooks, Tina Huang, Jeff Wolfe, Joe Pingue, Cesar Garcia, Sarah Adela Tirado, James Biberi, Christian Cage, Chris Smith, Tiara Parker River Stone Mckeever, Chris Muto, Wray Gould, Steve Knoll

‘Drive’ is a powerful and intriguing film that absolutely cannot be classified under one heading. Because of its sublime cinematography and strong visual images, ‘Drive’ has great appeal for lovers of an arthouse-like set-up, but due to the mixture of suspense, action and at times heavy mafia violence, it is also a must see for a target group that enjoys films like ‘The Godfather’. ‘ to appreciate. In a strong opening scene, the atmosphere is immediately captured. ‘Drive’ immediately grabs you, sucks you in and doesn’t let go!

‘Driver’ (Ryan Gosling) is employed by Shannon (Bryan Cranston) who is not only his agent for his stunt work with cars in Hollywood movies, but who also has a very different night job for him due to his mafia contacts as a driver in a getaway car of robbers. Shannon has bigger plans, however, he wants to buy a race car and hire Driver as a driver. To this end, he borrows money from mob boss Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks) who, however, has his own criminal plans and involves his partner in crime, Nino, (Ron Perlman).

Driver is a cool, not to say ice-cold frog, who acts almost emotionless like a machine under all circumstances. After a first chance contact in the elevator, he later meets his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan) who is standing with her son Benicio at a supermarket with car trouble. On a whim, he offers her a lift. They like each other, but Irene is married and her husband Standard (Oscar Isaac) is in prison. He is released unexpectedly, but still owes money to criminals. They beat him up, threaten his family and in this way put pressure on him to commit a robbery for them.

Developments then start at a rapid pace. Driver witnesses the beating and wants to help Standard out of sympathy for Irene and Benicio. Things then get horribly out of hand due to double play and betrayal. Driver analyzes where this double play was played and tries to get both Irene and Benicio out of harm’s way while taking revenge at the same time…. He sees that it will be a battle, in which ‘to the death’ is an understatement…

Ryan Gosling’s rendition of Driver is sublime. His facial expression is visually very powerful. The way he sometimes curls the corner of his mouth or smiles and makes almost silent advances to Irene is phenomenal. The way in which Carey Mulligan answers it is also convincing. The other casting is also more than successful.

In addition to the soulful romance in the relationship between Driver and Irene, the film also has more extreme moments with some violent confrontations. At those moments, the blood sometimes flows profusely, but this is functional in the storyline. As a result, ‘Drive’ has remained completely in balance, it never gets out of hand with cheap shock effects and ‘violence for the sake of violence’.

The editing is magnificent, the camera work strong. Fast action moments and shots with slow scenes alternate. The dialogues are sharp and pointed and the humor is not lost sight of.

Rock solid acting, visually unparalleled powerful cinema. ‘Drive’ is impressive and penetrating.