For the
sake of not having to write the same intro a million
different ways throughout the rest of time, just know that
this column avoids the overly long and sometimes dull
process of full film reviews and instead opts to break
things down based on what I thought going in, what happened
while I was there and what I learned at the end of it all.
Thanks for reading!
The
Breakdown - Drive
The Impression:
Nicolas Winding Refn has been making artistic action/crime/viking
films for a decade now and has quickly become a director
with whom I wait eagerly for their next product. The idea
that Refn has now chosen a lead actor like Ryan Gosling as
his actorly muse has me pulling at the loose bits of skin
around my fingernails.
The Reality:
Drive is easily the best film of the summer and one
of the best action films of the last ten years. Ryan Gosling
plays a stunt driver turned get-away man with a strict set
of a morals and penchant for sudden bursts of violence.
Nicolas Winding Refn builds The Driver (Ryan Gosling) as a
sort of super human force of nature - good at driving, good
at fixing shit, good at beating people - brought down by the
intrusion of a woman in his life. And with intrusion comes
the onset of hubris which arrives in the form of a drive-job
gone terribly wrong. The film is backed by an egregious 80s
soundtrack that though at first I visibly shook my head at,
works perfectly well. Refn does not fear style (see his acid
trip viking epic Valhalla Rising for evidence of
that) and Drive is absolutely amazing to look at. I
found myself on the edge of my seat not only waiting to see
what new situation Gosling’s silent beast might find
himself, but also to see how Refn would flip the most basic
of situations in to a gleaming pocket of originality. The
cast of the film is low-key and completely amazing - Albert
Brooks plays a crime-boss looking for a new venture, Ron
Perlman plays his second in command Nino, a brute psychopath
with a Jewish chip on his shoulder. Bryan Cranston plays the
chain-smoking mentor to Gosling and Cary Mulligan the shyly
smiling love interest. I can not recommend this movie more
highly. I don’t know, because of its artistic creation and
the fact that Hollywood is an evil place, if it will make
any money but what it will make is an announcement that
Nicolas Winding Refn is a true talent.
The Lesson:
You need to see this film.
- Noah Sanders
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