Drive
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, Christina Hendricks
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Rating: 5/5
To say that Drive was one of the most talked about movie of 2011 is a little bit of an understatement as there are not enough superlatives to do it justice.
The movie has already featured heavily during the awards season and it has deserved every nomination that has come its way - would like to see it pick up a few gongs!
Drive follows a Hollywood stunt driver by day (Gosling), a loner by nature, who moonlights as a top-notch getaway driver-for-hire in the criminal underworld.
He finds himself a target for some of LA’s most dangerous men after agreeing to aid the husband of his beautiful neighbour, Irene (Mulligan).
And from start to finish Gosling is totally superb - it's amazing how, with very little dialogue, he has created a character that was so totally compelling.
This is one of the finest performances of Gosling’s career as he shows that he does not need pages and pages of lines to get across what he is thinking or how he is feeling - which is quite a feat.
Carey Mulligan is also superb as Irene another character who says so much in her silences. Their relationship is intriguing and all consuming and there is so much power in what they do not say to one another.
Director Nicolas Winding Refn really does have to be applauded as in a time where the big budget blockbuster rules with its CGI laden action set pieces he has shown that less really is so much more.
He mixes beautifully steely, almost haunting, silences with these explosions of graphic violence - they really are in your face and break the peace and quiet of the movie.
Refn slowly racks up the tension throughout the movie with a feel that danger could be lurking around every corner, the elevator scene being the perfect example.
This is a really stylish movie it’s well thought out and beautifully crafted - hard to believe that it’ Refn’s first Hollywood movie.
Drive was one of the most original, emotional, visually stunning and violent movies to hit the big screen last year - we may just have a modern classic on our hands.
Drive is out on DVD & Blu-Ray now
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Tagged in Ryan Gosling Carey Mulligan Nicolas Winding Refn