Drive review

Drive - Meant to do this one last week. In any case, Drive is a much heralded movie with a 93% on RottenTomatoes.com, and my notoriously hard to please friend enjoyed it. That said, did I like it? Well, yes and no. But more on that later.

A driver who will take any (five-minute long) job gets into trouble when a job goes wrong and he must fight mobsters and thugs to protect himself, a young mother and her son.

Drive stars Ryan Gosling stars as "The Driver". This lack of a name, or any major characterization beyond the man's mechanical purpose in the film, is telling as to just what sort of movie this film really is. It's a B-movie, with all the positives and negative attributed to that sort of movie. Drive relishes in the simple definitions and sense of morality that would make Stallone proud (Cobra and Rambo were B-movies after all). The Driver and a young boy are watching a cartoon and a Shark with legs appears onscreen. "He's the Bad Guy" one of them says. "How can you tell?" the other replies. We know, and we don't need explanations or motivations. Who says the 50s are dead? We still consider ourselves to be our jobs, and we judge overly on appearances.

I enjoyed the way the first half of this movie plays out. Actually, I really enjoyed the way the first five minutes of the movie play out. It's tight, nail-bitingly suspenseful, and without a drop of blood. The first half of the film is almost a different beast altogether from the rest of the film. It's serene, interesting, and not much is said. But then how much of what we say in the real world is that important? Small talk prevails, as meaningful subjects are avoided. We all die wishing we'd said more and meant more. The first half of the movie was like a poetic mirror. I actually lost myself in some of the vast pauses in conversation. Maybe I read too much into it.

Drive has a fantastic supporting cast and, in my opinion, wastes a few of my favorite TV actors. Anything is proportionally better the more Christina Hendricks is used. Unfortunately, by Hollywood standards, she's far too beautiful (in a lioness way) to be cast as anything other than the woman who is not to be trusted. It's weird to see Bryan Cranston with hair (Jessie!) and I would have liked to have seen more of him as well.

I thought the soundtrack to be another of Drive's stronger points. The cinematography is also excellent. Unfortunately, someone got splattergore in my cool suspense film. Yes, the second half of the film is an over-the-top Tarantino level of violence. It's unnecessary, and the film can do nothing but take it completely seriously or risk an even weirder tonal shift from the first half of the movie. It offers a mildly interesting contrariness to the serene/suspenseful first half of the movie, but then, so would putting a severed head next to a Mona Lisa. That doesn't mean I would enjoy seeing that either. Oh Drive, I had high hopes for you. Maybe someday there can be a mainstream art picture without a bodycount. Alas, we do not live in that civilized a day. Our hands too, are dirty. Drive, which is at the end of the day a B-movie, gets a
B.