You sonuvabitch, Nicholas Winding Refn. You made such a good movie a few years ago with Bronson that how could you, under your own badass obligation, give movie audiences such a cheap and sterile film devoid of anything interesting or entertaining for that matter? You sonuvabitch.
The only thing this movie drove me was crazy. Ryan Gosling plays this mysterious (and emo) Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver for certain deals set up by his mechanic friend/boss. One of these said deals goes wrong and he has to deal with it for the sake of a woman and child he has grown attached to. Can one man take down the crooked establishment or does he wait for the stoplight and let the old lady pass?!
Instead of hitting on all cylinders like this movie could, it’s very slow moving and stupendously stupid. The story is so painfully underwritten that you’ll be grasping at details and wondering why the hell none of the movie makes any sense whatsoever. The main plot is contrived and forces you to just accept whatever is going on instead of questioning the sanity of said problems. While it does try to be an original movie, it keeps close to the standard and stays in neutral for a majority of the film.
That’s until a little bit of gruesome violence starts thus breaking up the tediousness of the rest of the movie. There are some interesting moments of violence that are strangely quite gruesome for a mainstream film (with Ryan Gosling no less), but they are quickly made terrible by the poor choice of all this overindulgent slow-mo shots that break any tension or coolness it’s trying to create. The direction by Refn is astounding in its crappiness. He takes so many shortcuts in directing that you’ll be wondering why the hell the ending was so bland and bad.
The largest problem with the movie is that it has major identity issues—too many things are happening at once, yet the movie is slow and lame. So many themes come into play that are underexplored yet captured in a way to have more purpose than they actually do. Aside from all the technical gripes, the performances are all pretty bad, too. Gosling, who has proven in the past he’s a tremendous actor via such films like Blue Valentine, Lars & the Real Girl, and Half Nelson, sleepwalks through this entire movie and is in this emo mood for too much of the movie that’s quite distracting. Carey Mulligan, his romantic interest, does virtually nothing in this movie.
I wouldn’t say I hated Drive, I just didn’t care for it. It’s like a long car ride that doesn’t really go anywhere and while there are a few mellow bumps to break up the tedium monotony…it’s still a long ass car ride you find out doesn’t really go anywhere. The fact that audiences are digging this in all of its premeditated pretentiousness that is obvious and un-experimental boggles my mind. I want to drive this movie off a cliff. And enough with the eighties tones and music—this is a contemporary movie. Get your head on straight, Refn—you can't bullshit a bullshitter. This is a terrible movie you've made, sir.
1.5 out of 5 Stars
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