With every push of the throttle, the thriller Drive accelerates deeper and deeper into the life of the unnamed protagonist - we'll call him "Driver" - portrayed by Academy Award-nominated actor Ryan Gosling. Gosling stars as a professional getaway driver, and the movie gets your blood pumping from the get-go. Director Nicolas Winding Refn works with a sort of patience that only a truly artful movie could maneuver, and the film becomes far more than the typical action flick.
Driver takes his duties very seriously: he drives his clients for five minutes - not a minute more, not a minute less. He will not carry a gun. He will not help with any of the crime; he will only drive.\nBy day, he works in a garage and as a stunt man in Hollywood movies, flipping cars as though he doesn't feel the pain of crashing. At night, however, he becomes a phantom, an introverted insomniac; only when night falls do we get a closer look into his emotionally crippled character.
In fact, we barely see Driver interact with anyone until Irene (Carey Mulligan) sits in the passenger seat. Both characters clearly harbor deep psychological wounds, as Irene has a husband in prison and is taking care of her young son on her own. When Irene's husband soon gets out of prison, only to face a world of debt which he can only pay off by robbing a pawnshop, Driver offers up his services to protect her family. The task becomes more complicated than Driver initially thinks; this time, he finds himself doing more than just driving. Refn takes time to develop Driver and Irene's relationship, but the plot does not necessarily follow the audience's expectations of typical hero-heroine dynamics.
As Driver becomes more and more wrapped up in Irene's world, his straight-edged rules and rigid personality gradually dissolve. His mind becomes more susceptible to corruption, and he finds himself engulfed in the world and crimes of which he wanted to steer clear. This film exploits his perspective along the way, with great violence and gore and even better scenes portraying Driver's descent into moral ambiguity and emotional turmoil. Refn uses anticipation and character development in a fantastic way, allowing for us to relate to Gosling's character, learn to love him and then be surprised by his actions, which we support by the end.
In addition to the excellent directing and cinematography, the acting is superb. The cast is chock-full of strong and experienced actors - in addition to Gosling and Mulligan, the movie also stars Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks and Christina Hendricks. In short, this film just works. With a Rotten Tomatoes score of 93 percent, Drive promises thrills for viewers across the board.
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