Drive
Nicolas Winding Refn’s super-stylish and occasionally super-violent Drive is a magnificent homage to US crime films from the late 1970s and ‘80s, with Ryan Gosling impressive as the monosyllabic anti-hero caught up in a spiraling web of double-cross and violence.
(...) Driver (Ryan Gosling) – no other name – is a movie stunt driver and part-time mechanic by day and by night he moonlights as a getaway driver…and he is exceptionally good at his job. His manager/mentor is Shannon (Bryan Cranston) who gets him jobs in movies as well as in crime, and is also trying to find investment for a stock car so that Driver can turn professional.
[H]is life subtly changes direction when he meets Irene (Carey Mulligan) who has moved into the apartment next to his with her young son Benicio (Kaden Leos).
The film really only has a few actual car chase sequences – and very impessively shot they are too – because essentially this is a classically structured crime drama about hope and redemption. Driver glimpses the possibility of a better life, but before long he is deeper in the criminal mire than ever before…he has options but he finds himself no-longer the lone ranger, but instead a man with compassion and a need to do the right thing. And such feelings – in the world of movies at least – usually lead to nothing but trouble.
Mark Adams, Screen International
Duration: 100 min
Dialogue: English
Subtitles: Finnish and Swedish
Age limit: K18
