4 OUT 4 STARS

Just got back from watching DRIVE. It is one of those movies that doesn’t play out the way the trailer sells it, but rather blows away your expectations and makes you feel like the $24 you just spent on the tickets (assuming you have a date) are completely worth it. DRIVE is the latest movie from director Nicolas Winding Refn, the man responsible for the film BRONSON. I too recommend that film, specially because you can see a lot of his style being used in this movie.

DRIVE is based on a book by James Sallis, I personally never had the chance to read it but now I’m kind of curious. The film is about a young man (Ryan Gosling) who is a Hollywood stunt driver by day and a wheelman by night, he discovers that a contract has been put on his head after a heist gone wrong. I’ll leave it at that, the less you know the better :). DRIVE is filled with lots of characters and all of them are three-dimensional. The  movie starts off with a day in the live off and then moves into a full character study which allows the drama, tension and plot to build up. Then it turns and it becomes way more awesome that it was at the beginning.

The film doesn’t rush to any conclusion, it takes its time and we (the audience) embrace it, because it’s interesting. There’s a bit of romance and there’s violence, and sometimes the violent scenes are filmed like a romantic scene, it is fucking great. Director Nicolas Winding Refn applied the same techniques in BRONSON, by putting a soft dramatic melody and slow motion into something violent and horrific. I believe we can thank Alfred Hitchcock for that; he said “film your love scenes like your murder scenes and your murder scenes like your love scenes”.

The lovely Carey Mulligan plays the female supporting role, and she’s more than your typical sex-me-up gal. She’s complex character you come to care about, just like the hero of the story. With very little dialogue we can tell she’s in a difficult situation, caring for the neighbor who’s a stunt driver, and the husband who’s been released from prison. Oh and let’s not forget her charismatic son who becomes buddy with the driver. Both of this characters provide a sense of hope for the driver and when they are in danger, he’s willing to go the distance to keep them safe.

This is where most of the action kicks off. Heist goes wrong and all hell breaks loose when a couple of mobsters decide to eliminate everyone in their paths. One of them played by HELLBOY himself, the great Ron Perlman who runs a Pizza restaurant and all kinds of sketchy deals with his partner, played by Albert Brooks. Yes, Albert fucking Brooks, the guy that brought us some of the great comedies like Young Frankenstein (my bad, that was Mel Brooks) Albert Brooks is the father in Finding Nemo. In this film he plays a ruthless mobster who loves getting his hands dirty, he does a fantastic job at it.

Since the title for this film is DRIVE I was expecting some wild car chase scenes a la FRENCH CONNECTION and RONIN. But that’s not quite the case, yes there are some chance scenes, they’re short and sweet, but it is secondary to the great story, there’s much more at stake here. This film has the right formula and this director has that magic touch I talked about in my last review. DRIVE is one of the best movies I’ve seen in theaters this year. It is worth the price of admission and then some, plus the movie has a kick ass soundtrack. We need more films like this one.