Movie Review: Drive

[RacingManiac]

I haven't watch much movies in theater recently, and I am not usually one to do reviews, but I thought this was somewhat relevant to a "car" person, or at least I thought it would be.....didn't quite turnout that way...Spoilers ahead...

So the promise of the film was simple. The main protagonist/anti-hero(Played by Canadian Ryan Gosling), aptly credited as "Driver", is a full-time mechanics/part-time stunt driver who moonlight as a getaway guy for the dirty underbelly of LA crime scene. He goes about his business quietly and everything seems straight forward(for someone with a double life anyway), until get gets involved with his neighbor, discovered some humanity and ended up in some bad situation and stuff gets sideway and bloody(very). Simple enough promise, simple enough story that probably was told in many guises.

Though with such a promise in a more mainstream film, you can probably expect such setting be exploited, but not so in this, as you see, this is still what I'd consider as an "art house" flick. And despite what the marketing trailer and even some critics' reviews may utter otherwise, it is quite light on actual action, vehicular or otherwise. It is also light on dialogue. So we end up getting lots of staring, lots of goofy grin and awkward silence, in between some of the plot pieces.

Now the film does have its merit, for the few of those set pieces, the action is shot well, the editing and the score does a great job in drumming up the tension and keeping your pulse racing. And it is very gory....in the sense for an art house maker using blood and gore as a artistic statement or something. There are a few scene it was quite over the top that you can hear people laughing....

The film maker did have some interesting touches through the movie that I thought was clever, whether it was the intent or not I don't know. The main car chase(and really the only) pits a new 5.0 Stang with a Chrysler 300C. In a sense echoing the modern counterpart of the Bullitt chase.

But overall the film for me was kinda disappointing, mainly due to I guess an unrealistic expectation from the marketing material....

[Vindesh17]

Awkward silence does not even begin to describe this movie. I thought it was complete shit, except the gore. I swear everyone on IMDB is trolling, last time I checked it had an 8.7!

[TVRs4eva]

***SPOILER STUFF***

I saw the film this morning.

Going into it, I had intentionally kept myself from reading any reviews. I watched the trailer once, and decided to go see it without any expectations or knowledge of the plot beyond a one-sentence summary.

I thought it was very well done. It was paced somewhat slowly, but the lack of dialogue on the part of the main character was excellent - Ryan Gosling did such an awesome job of acting that he developed his character better with his body language and facial expressions than he could have if he was talking the whole time. I'm glad the filmmakers didn't feel the need to bash the audience over the head with obvious dialogue in order to tell the story.

The action scenes were great too - the pawn shop scene was tense, the car chase was great, and Blanche getting her head blown off was downright disturbing. The gore was tastefully done, with the exception of the henchmen getting stabbed in the throat... that seemed a little unnecessary.

The directing was artsy, and I liked the blend of graphic violence with stretches of deep insight into the characters. Not really sure what you guys didn't like about it... did you really find the silence to be that much of a nuisance?

[RacingManiac]

Silence is fine, but the length which they draw it out was a bit unnecessary....

I know the gore was done for artistic license....but some scene was just silly...elevator scene reminds me of stuff I see in Anime...Though the timing of it was good.

Like I said, its not a bad movie, but it was sold as a different movie to the one that was actually played...

[RacingManiac]

Woman files lawsuit over 'misleading' trailer for Drive

lol

[asparcha]

not a good movie, I did not like it