"Driven" With Decent Mileage

A friend of mine recommended I check out Drive a while back. To me, the title sounded cool and I initially pictured an intense racing or heist movie filled with high speed chases. What I got was at times very intense, but not exactly high speed. Director Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive is an ambitious movie that tries to blend thought provoking drama with intense action, but doesn't quite cross the finish line.

The movie stars Ryan Gosling as "the driver," an unnamed stunt driver who also works in a garage run by the sleazy Shannon (played by Bryan Cranston) and occasionally as a getaway driver. The driver is kind of a loner, who lives by himself in a small apartment and isn't into much other than his aforementioned jobs. That is, until he meets his neighbor Irene played by Carey Mulligan and her son Benicio.

The driver hits it off pretty well with the two of them, though he appears very distant. He takes them for rides in his car, hangs out in their apartment, and generally seems to live a life with them outside of work. All of this changes when Irene's husband Standard comes back from prison. Standard's return not only ruins any hope for the driver and Irene getting together, but his criminal past catches up to him. To save Irene and Benicio, the driver takes on a shady job that leads him down a violent road and puts him at odds with crime lords Bernie Rose and Nino, played by Ron Perlman.

Though it may sound exciting, the movie decides to go at a deliberately slow pace. With a title like Drive, I have to say I was expecting a little more. Throughout the movie, the camera focuses a lot on the emotions and interactions between the characters and less on the action. This would have been an interesting approach, except all the characters for the most part feel like archetypes and not fully fleshed out people- the driver is the loner, Shannon is the sleazy boss, Irene is the love interest, and  Nino is the bad guy.

None of the action  picks up until halfway through the movie. Until that point, much of the action consists of the driver waiting in his car or going about his daily routine. This isn't exactly a bad thing though, as this approach offers us some insight into the driver's life- but again, he doesn't really feel that interesting. Half of the time- including the scenes with Irene and Benicio- the driver just stares off into space.

That's not to say there isn't any action at all. When the action hits the screen, it hits hard.  There are scenes when people literally get blown away by shotguns, slashed by straight razors, and face stomped. There are also a few really cool car chases that were filmed at just the right speed to not leave the audience dizzy. Because of the lack of action earlier in the movie, these scenes actually come out a lot more visceral than they normally would have, and were a definite highlight of the movie.

Another thing I really liked about the movie was the soundtrack. No matter what was happening on screen, the '80s influenced electronic soundtrack was there to give the movie an ethereal, dream like tone. To me, this tone fits really well with the thoughts and emotions that I imagined to be going through the ever staring driver's head.

When it comes down to it, Drive is an alright movie. Though it suffers from a slow beginning and undeveloped characters, Drive tries to make up for it with visually stunning action scenes and a much more intense final half. My verdict is a 7 out of 10.