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kv0925I know, I've been a bad LJ citizen lately, sparse on the posts and comments. Sorry!
And I'm just wrapping up my workweek, but I thought I'd type up a quick review of the movie I finished last night, 2011's Drive with Ryan Gosling, Bryan Cranston, Carey Mulligan, Ron Perlman, and Albert Brooks.
I think this film was suggested to me by a blog I occasionally follow, dedicated mainly to Richard Stark's Parker novels. They occasionally recommend other books and movies that draw parallels to the world of those books, and Drive was one of those suggestions. The main character, never given a name beyond 'Kid' and credited as 'Driver', is a quiet, rather enigmatic fellow. Apparently quite gifted behind the wheel, he's an auto mechanic and Hollywood stunt driver by day, and moonlights as a driver for professional criminals who need to make a clean getaway from robberies and whatnot. He lives in a small, run-down apartment, where his neighbor down the hall is Irene, a young woman living alone with her son while her husband is in prison. Driver makes a connection with her and her son, so when the husband is released from prison with a dark shadow still over his head, Driver offers to help him get out from under it by serving as the driver for one last robbery. It goes wrong with a double-cross and a bag full of mob cash, and Driver finds himself in the middle of a tangled web involving himself and everyone he's connected to.
Enough plot--it's nothing new, but handled well enough and with a few nice twists and surprises. The director, Nicolas Winding Refn (selected for the project by Ryan Gosling, apparently) brings an interesting style to the film, not least through his musical choices--a few electronic pop tunes that were recorded in the 2000s but which hearken back to the 1980s and add a distinctive feel to the scenes they accompany. I actually found the music a bit jarring at first, since it's so different from most movie soundtracks, but it did grow on me. The performances are solid, especially Carey Mulligan as the sweet-but-strong Irene and Gosling as the mostly stone-faced Driver of very few words. Most of their relationship is portrayed wordlessly, but they make it work. Similarly, even though Driver himself emotes little and says even less, and displays quite the penchant for brutal violence as the film progresses, it's never in doubt that his heart is in the right place, and he's doing the things he does to protect both himself and the people he cares for. Bryan Cranston takes a nice turn as Driver's boss and friend. The weakest characters are the assorted gangsters in the film, who are fairly one-dimensional.
I should mention the violence: there is a decent amount, and it is fairly intense. It's actually rather shocking when the first bloody death occurs, since there's been no hint of that sort of violence up to that moment. That said, the violence and even the automotive action scenes are handled with a great deal of efficiency--they are short and no-nonsense, without the extravagances of too many angles and slow-motion. Refn also does not shy away from blood and gore, so be warned about that.
Finally, the ending did feel quite unresolved to me--I'm sure that was intentional, and call me shallow, but I would have liked to see a bit more resolution.
Overall, not a bad flick, though definitely not the flick I was expecting. I'd give it a 47 on my arbitrary 64-point scale, would watch again.
Time to go home! Have a good weekend, people!
And I'm just wrapping up my workweek, but I thought I'd type up a quick review of the movie I finished last night, 2011's Drive with Ryan Gosling, Bryan Cranston, Carey Mulligan, Ron Perlman, and Albert Brooks.
I think this film was suggested to me by a blog I occasionally follow, dedicated mainly to Richard Stark's Parker novels. They occasionally recommend other books and movies that draw parallels to the world of those books, and Drive was one of those suggestions. The main character, never given a name beyond 'Kid' and credited as 'Driver', is a quiet, rather enigmatic fellow. Apparently quite gifted behind the wheel, he's an auto mechanic and Hollywood stunt driver by day, and moonlights as a driver for professional criminals who need to make a clean getaway from robberies and whatnot. He lives in a small, run-down apartment, where his neighbor down the hall is Irene, a young woman living alone with her son while her husband is in prison. Driver makes a connection with her and her son, so when the husband is released from prison with a dark shadow still over his head, Driver offers to help him get out from under it by serving as the driver for one last robbery. It goes wrong with a double-cross and a bag full of mob cash, and Driver finds himself in the middle of a tangled web involving himself and everyone he's connected to.
Enough plot--it's nothing new, but handled well enough and with a few nice twists and surprises. The director, Nicolas Winding Refn (selected for the project by Ryan Gosling, apparently) brings an interesting style to the film, not least through his musical choices--a few electronic pop tunes that were recorded in the 2000s but which hearken back to the 1980s and add a distinctive feel to the scenes they accompany. I actually found the music a bit jarring at first, since it's so different from most movie soundtracks, but it did grow on me. The performances are solid, especially Carey Mulligan as the sweet-but-strong Irene and Gosling as the mostly stone-faced Driver of very few words. Most of their relationship is portrayed wordlessly, but they make it work. Similarly, even though Driver himself emotes little and says even less, and displays quite the penchant for brutal violence as the film progresses, it's never in doubt that his heart is in the right place, and he's doing the things he does to protect both himself and the people he cares for. Bryan Cranston takes a nice turn as Driver's boss and friend. The weakest characters are the assorted gangsters in the film, who are fairly one-dimensional.
I should mention the violence: there is a decent amount, and it is fairly intense. It's actually rather shocking when the first bloody death occurs, since there's been no hint of that sort of violence up to that moment. That said, the violence and even the automotive action scenes are handled with a great deal of efficiency--they are short and no-nonsense, without the extravagances of too many angles and slow-motion. Refn also does not shy away from blood and gore, so be warned about that.
Finally, the ending did feel quite unresolved to me--I'm sure that was intentional, and call me shallow, but I would have liked to see a bit more resolution.
Overall, not a bad flick, though definitely not the flick I was expecting. I'd give it a 47 on my arbitrary 64-point scale, would watch again.
Time to go home! Have a good weekend, people!
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Date: 2013-11-18 06:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-18 07:08 pm (UTC)