Ryan Gosling has a job to do in "Drive."
(Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011)
October 6, 2011
by Joel Crary
It’s been a whole three weeks since I saw and reviewed Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia,” a film that contained many hypnotizing slow-motion shots, effectively communicating the existential ache accompanying humanity’s final moments on Earth. Now here’s “Drive,” a movie that lends the impression that if its slow-motion shots were restored to regular speed, its runtime may be cut in half. “Drive” being an action movie (sort of), the temptation to roll the eyes at such played-out excesses is somewhat powerful.
The director is Nicolas Winding Refn from Denmark, who struck a chord in North America with “Bronson” in 2008, showing a penchant for violence and sideways protagonists. I want to be fair to him. There’s a lot about “Drive” that makes me resist the eye-rolling impulse. I haven’t seen “Bronson,” but would like to, based on how stylish this film is. Refn has chosen the ’80s as his aesthetic reference point, down to an opening credit sequence that screams “Miami Vice.” He chooses his spot in the pantheon of American action flicks carefully, and tries his best to add to it in a unique way.
The hero in “Drive” is a Man with No Name played by Ryan Gosling, and in the film’s arresting opening sequence, he blows us away with the finesse and concentration he shows as a getaway driver during a heist. The film’s setup follows the classic low-rent crime flick template closely. The Driver is a stuntman by day, and makes use of his talents to pull in some illicit dough by night. He has a friend and mentor in mechanic Shannon (Bryan Cranston), who limps around on a bad debt turned broken leg. They embroil themselves with some real shady characters, including Bernie Rose, played by the decidedly unshady Albert Brooks, which is just crazy enough to work. Another, Nino, is played by Ron Perlman, which of course always works perfectly.
The Driver doesn’t seem to have much of a past, but antiheroes like this tend to lack a past in order to hint that they have nothing left to lose. In his stone-cold stilted way, he begins to fall for neighbour Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her son Benicio (Kaden Leos), who may provide a way out of the violent life. That path is always crooked in films like this; one bend in particular is presented by Standard (Oscar Isaac), Irene’s convict husband, who is released only to have to deal with the people who protected him in prison and want money in return.
To help Irene and her son, the Driver shoulders part of the burden by getting behind the wheel for the thugs, including attractive gun moll Blanche (Christina Hendricks). This brings on some solid car chases and heist scenes, but not enough as the action gives way to overly long, contemplative stretches where Los Angeles street lights go blurry against the windshield and characters are shown in superimposed profile making “this ends tonight” type phone calls. You need a bit of both, to be sure, but where “Drive” differs especially from the action pictures of yore is in its pacing. Whether Refn and screenwriter Hossein Amini are aiming for a callback or a lampooning in their use of the James Sallis source material, this is a mistake.
Refn definitely has chops. Unique visuals abound, often approaching David Lynch territory in their out-and-out insanity. There’s no other comparison to make when the Driver approaches Nino’s pizzeria clad in a creepy rubber mask, only to find the proprietor laughing maniacally as an aging wannabe starlet looks bored in response (all in slow motion, of course). Or another moment in a strip club dressing room, where the Driver threatens to hammer a bullet square into a man’s forehead as a circle of bare-breasted women look on with infinite disinterest. Those are the kinds of potent ideas directors have to work backwards from, and Refn is pretty adept at backtracking.
What he needs is a story. A lot of “Drive”‘s emotional impact hinges on how much stock we’re willing to put into the Driver’s affection for Irene and Benicio, and I didn’t much buy it. The decision to open up the character through little more than expressions of physical brutality ends up backfiring; it’s difficult to get a handle on his inner torment during those long road sequences, punctuated by a borderline invasive new wave soundtrack. Besides, the Man with No Name knew that love was trouble. It gets in the way of the job, which apart from the incidental impulse to do the “right thing” is the only reason for the character to exist.
I have no doubt that quite a bit of “Drive” was done with tongue planted firmly in cheek – how else to explain a line where an ’80s action director recalls his pathetic oeuvre by observing that critics found it “European”? The movie is indeed ridiculous, and in mostly the right way, but it’s ultimately a bit too routine at its core. None of the characters do anything unexpected as they hold on for dear life to their attempts at Tarantino pulp-creation status. Pretty soon it becomes a matter of bodies falling all too gradually, albeit on the end of some gratuitous splatter, until there are none left to drop. It’s all very nice to look at, and that’s to Refn’s credit. It fails only when we have to ask why we should care.
