Starting at about 8PM on Friday night I started seeing a lot of tweets from folks that were recommending Drive as the movie to see this weekend. Most of these folks are in the games press (I follow them for fun gaming info), and they likened the movie to Grand Theft Auto. This intrigued me to no end, so, while I had no intention of seeing Drive, I went out on Sunday and gave it a run.
I have to say that I was beyond pleasantly surprised. Drive is a very slow-paced action film. Its slow speed punctuates the very visceral violence, that only happens every so often, but once it does, its very memorable. The movie follows a driver (Ryan Gosling) as he tries to navigate his way through some bad luck caused by his close friend and boss Shannon (Bryan Cranston). Along the way he helps out Irene (Carey Mulligan), who's husband is in jail. Ryan Gosling's character develops a relationship with Irene and her son Benicio, and when he tries to help out her just-released husband, things go south.
The acting is pretty good in the movie, Albert Brooks plays a gangster, and Ron Perlman is, as always, his slightly off-kilter self. The only person I was not really a fan of in the film was probably Carey Mulligan's character. There were a couple scenes where she could have emoted a little bit more, but overall she wasn't too bad. Ryan Gosling does a great job at being stoic throughout the movie and you can actually understand his thought process, even though there is very little dialog.
The real gem of the movie is the long pauses in dialog where there is a break in the action, it really punctuates the action and driving sequences, which are few and far between, but well-paced, when they do happen. There are also some great car-chases (to be expected, with a name like Drive), and the sound-track bears mentioning as well. Very good music, especially the song "A Real Hero” by College (feat. Electric Youth)
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Anyhow, Drive gets a solid 4/5 from me, and if you are in the mood for a very well made and well acted movie, give this one a run!
As always comments/suggestions/whatever is appreciated! Also, if there's anything you'd like me to watch and chat about, let me know!
