We lovers of noir don’t get a whole lot of bones thrown our way at the theater these days, so when Drive came out last fall to quite good reviews, I was excited. Unfortunately, its release coincided with the beginning of football season and the time of year in which I notoriously don’t do much besides watch football.
I was finally able to catch it on Blu-ray the other night to see if the hype was warranted. With minor caveats, it was.
Drive stars Ryan Gosling as a mechanic who is unnamed–his boss calls him the Kid, but that’s the only time anyone calls him anything. In addition to his duties at the shop, he supplements his income doing stunt driving for the movies and as a best-of-the-best getaway driver reminiscent of Jason Statham in The Transporter in role but completely different in tone.
Drive has much deeper similarities to Not Quite Parker film The Driver, enough that they can’t be a coincidence. There are obviously the titles and the main characters’ profession, but also the nameless main character, the LA setting, and the general tone of the thing. The plot is different, but the feel is definitely there.
The plot begins when the Kid befriends young mother Irene (Carey Mulligan), whose husband Standard (Oscar Isaac) is in jail but soon to be released. Meanwhile, the Kid’s boss at the shop, Shannon (Bryan Cranston), is working with some low-rent mafiosos to fund a race car for the Kid, so that maybe they can use his skills to make some real money. These threads, of course, converge.
We don’t learn a lot about what makes the Kid tick, except for that the title of the film is as much about him as it is about what he does. Whatever it is he decides to do, he is driven both to do it right and to see it through to completion. This mostly-silent cypher could have been a disaster if miscast, but Gosling is stellar in conveying a menace that lurks just beneath his pretty-boy good looks. On the occasions when this menace is unleashed, he is utterly convincing. If he were ten years older and a bit more grizzled, he would make a great Parker, which I never would have thought walking in. Believable masculinity is a rarity in young actors these days, but Gosling’s got it.
The rest of the cast is just as good. I read several complaints that this film didn’t get any Oscar recognition for its performances, and I understand why people were complaining. It was robbed like a pawn shop.
The film only falters in two areas. The first is the ending, which, while not bad and definitely not an embarrassment, felt a little undercooked. They didn’t need to go over the top, but they could have and should have nursed a little more drama out of it.
The second is the music. The movie’s score is great, but for some reason there are three vocal numbers included that don’t fit the film at all. I had recently watched First Blood, where a dark, gritty, intense movie ends with an awful cheesy ’80s song over the end credits that kills the mood entirely. It wasn’t that bad in Drive, but it was pretty close and seemed almost as dated even though this film only came out six months ago. It was a strange creative decision, and one I don’t understand at all.
Put those quibbles aside, because they’re not that big of a deal. Drive is a fine contemporary noir, and anyone reading this site is almost certain to like it a lot.
(If you’ve seen Drive, let me know what you thought. Also tell me about the James Sallis novel upon which it’s based, which I have not yet read.)
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Actually, you’ve inspired me to watch To Live And Die In L.A. again! Great noir with a dated score, but a score I’ve grown very fond of….Wang Chung everybody! I’ll try Drive a little later!! Thanks!
The book covers a lot more of the lead’s life as a giveaway / stunt driver, the film grabbed two plot threads and merged them then left most of everything else out. The lead’s character is fleshed out a little, but it’s still firmly in the hard-boiled, man with no name or past category, and I’d highly recommend it to Stark fans… and not just because Stark (and a few other crime authors I don’t currently recall) get name-checked on the second or third page.
Sallis definitely knew the kind of stories he wanted to pay homage to, and he did a fine job of it. There’s a follow-up due out in a few months too.
The book was better than the movie, in my opinion. I didn’t know Sallis was writing a second book, Tony M., so thanks for that info, I’ll be on the lookout.
The film was OK, there are some changes to characters and some of the book’s characters aren’t in the movie but that’s par for the course with film adaptations. I had a different reaction to the casting of Gosling as The Driver. Couldn’t get past the image of him as a singing pre-teen on the Disney channel. I know, it’s what he’s doing now that counts and I do give him credit as a very good actor, but I can’t picture him as Parker, ever. Couldn’t even really believe him as Driver. As Winslow’s Neal Carey, maybe.
With Cruise playing Jack Reacher and Di Caprio supposedly cast as Travis McGee I see a pattern of boyish-looking men playing tough, masculine literary characters that’s disheartening. At least Statham is visually believable as Parker even if he doesn’t match the character’s physical dimensions to a tee.
I share your frustration with casting these days, which is why I highlighted how good I thought Gosling was–when I saw he was cast, I thought “Here we go again,” and so was very pleasantly surprised.
I don’t have any baggage with Gosling, though, so my mind was relatively open. I may have seen him on Young Hercules a time or two, don’t really remember, but that’s it. Never saw him as a kid on Disney, so while I was aware of his background, images of kiddie Gosling were not dancing in my head.
But we definitely do need some tough-guy actors who actually look like tough-guy actors.
The sequel to the book, titled Driven, is being released on April 3. The director of Drive has already expressed interest in filming it, and I think I read that Gosling was positive about that possibility, too. However, it’s not clear that Drive made enough money to get a sequel bankrolled.
Even though I liked the book better, I thought the film was well done. I thought Gosling did a good job but my mind kept rewinding back to when he was thirteen and singing Nsync-type crap in his MC Hammer pants. I know, I have to forget that. Believe me, I WANT to forget that.
He really is a very good actor. Like most actors, they have to do crappy stuff when they first get in the biz for exposure’s sake; plus he was just a kid.
The original actor cast was Hugh Jackman. Don’t know how that would have turned out. I sense Jackman might be a good actor but he picks a lot of really dumb roles. He’s nowhere near my idea of the Wolverine from my comic-reading days. Actually, Statham would have made a great Logan.
If you liked “Drive”, check out Michael Mann’s “Thief”. Great movie and and an obvious inspiration to “Drive”
Thief is awesome. One of my favorites. I remember Caan saying in an interview he considered it his best work, which is saying a lot considering he was in The Godfather. I love Mann’s style of dialogue; like how the characters rarely use contractions–they will say things like: “You will call the man because it is important to speak to him” instead of “You’ll call the man because it’s important to speak to him.”
Another screenwriter I really like is David Mamet. His movie Heist is brilliant. One of the all-time best caper movies. His dialogue is really stylish as well. Either Mann or Mamet would be great choices to script a Parker film.
I will have to check out The Driver with Ryan O’ Neal when it comes on cable again. I stayed up late last year to watch it (this is before I had a DVR; which is indispensible to me now) but fell asleep within ten minutes into it (not out of boredom, just exhaustion).
I haven’t seen Heist yet. I’ll need to rent it (along with many other suggestions), when I get a little more spare time for such things. It would be good to see Thief again, too, since the last time I watched it was a worn-out pan & scan VHS.
The DVD of The Driver is cheap. You’ll get your money’s worth if you’re the type to watch movies more than once or twice.
I second the Heist recommendation. There’s some really good hard-boiled dialogue in there, and the various heists are pretty impressive too.
Wow, where have I been because I didn’t know that Gosling was a Disney kid or on Young Hercules, and I had no idea that Drive is based on a book. After hearing from several of my co-workers at DISH that Gosling does a great job in the movie, I decided to order Drive in HD through my DISH subscription. I enjoyed the film overall and I liked the ending, however this could be because I’ve never read the book. I also really like the synth-pop soundtrack, and I thought a couple of the songs like A Real Hero by College and Nightcall by Kavinsky added to the romantic mystery of Gosling’s character.
I’m looking forward to reading the book and if that goes well then I’ll also look for the second book. Thank you all for the suggestions!
I liked Drive just fine, although it did remind me of early Michael Mann, as others have remarked, and also The Driver (of course), and also (also) intentionally style-over-substance 80s flicks like The Loveless and Subway. One thing I was quite shocked by, though, was the level of violence, the head-stomping scene in particular. I really didn’t expect that going in. I had no real problem with it (well, apart from violence being obviously A BAD THING, innit), but then I watched a DVD extra (possibly UK only) interview with Nicolas Winding Refn in which he kept referring to Ryan Gosling’s character as “the hero”, and how Gosling goes on a hero’s journey. Really? A hero? The driver may have that whole cool, internalized, taciturn thing going on, but when you examine what he does in the movie, at root, he’s a bit of a cock. He’s a hero in the same way that Parker or Travis Bickle are heroes, i.e., not at all.
Still, as I say, good film. And I’m highly amused by all of your references to Gosling’s shady past in Young Hercules and Disney shit. Like Nicole, I had no idea about that aspect of his career. I only know him from Half Nelson and Lars and the Real Girl (both really good films).
I read some of that nonsense about him being a hero on Wikipedia: “Refn sees The Driver as a knight who roams around the countryside searching for people to save.”
Say what? I guess I missed that part.
I never saw a lot of Young Hercules, but (and this may shock some people) I’m a huge fan of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.
You might hear one comparing this to a Tarantino film, but take a second and leave all worries at the door, this is an absorbing and tremendously unique piece of cinema from Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn. The reason it works so exquisitely well is because the film grabs hold of you and takes you inside this often dark and dream-like LA setting. So, when the end of the film hits, you feel apart of this film, and it’s there to stay.
This film also offers a Ryan Gosling like you’ve never seen him, speaking only when necessary, with tension and fury in his eyes. He’s silent, caring, and ridiculously tough. Every line is delivered perfectly and every gesture is natural.
I saw this at the LA Film Festival on a mammoth screen with booming speakers. The music only makes this film more unique. It is catchy and synchronized perfectly with the TRULY beautiful cinematography.
This film is the BEST of its genre, but really. I honestly cannot compare it to any other film, for it is truly that different. “Drive” is already the best of the year, because I’m POSITIVE no other film will haunt and invade me quite like this film has. This is not just a classic for its genre, but a beautiful and bold classic in general.
Have a lovely day
Alexa
ALexa, I agree with a lot of what you wrote. But I can’t seriously say Drive is the BEST of it’s genre. If the genre we’re talking about is Hardboiled/Crime, I can list quite a few movies that have Drive beat:
Heat, Thief, Heist, The Outfit, City of Industry, just to name a few.
But Drive is definitely a very fine film, and should have received more acclaim and box office receipts. Gosling is quite good in this, even though I can’t quite see him as Driver as well as I could other actors, but Gosling is a fine actor, no arguing that.
The score was nicely done. I saw it in the theater and when the opening sequence started and Kavinsky’s Nightcall came blaring out of the theater’s speakers, it was pretty damn cool;-)
I have to say that for the past couple of hours i have been hooked by the impressive posts on this blog. Keep up the great work.
Jayna:
Why thank you! We aspire to have many more.
By the way, Drive fans, the sequel is out (the book, I mean) and it’s called Driven. James Sallis is a pretty good writer. I hope he writes more crime novels. (I know he has two PI series already, but I mean more novels in the same vein as Drive, Driven.)