By Wren Culp
Webmaster

How can anyone say less than 150 words in a single film and still have their character completely understood and the audience be rooting for them? Apparently only Ryan Gosling can do it, as he shines in the new film Drive

Drive follows the story of “The Driver” (Gosling) who by day is a stunt car driver, flipping cop cars for Hollywood productions. By night he avoids the police as a getaway driver for robberies, as he does in the film’s beautiful opening sequence.

He has no identity other than “him” or “the kid”. He simply exists, moving from job to job in a wordless fashion.

This film and everything about it is the definition of “cool”. Gosling, the beautiful Los Angeles backdrop and the soundtrack are all factors that film just so downright awesome. In hindsight, Drive is more slick and cool than John Travolta in Grease, which should say a lot.

But understand this, Drive isn’t a movie about driving. Yes, it has a couple car chase scenes here and there, but it’s about so much more than that. It’s about what drives people to do certain things. The choices and actions driving people to and from other people is what this film is about.

The film feels like a dream as you spin through its never-ending hypnotic phase of elegance. The film is also accented with quick jumps to fast, realistic action sequences.

The action in the film varies from getaways in Mustangs to beating someone’s head in while in an elevator and everything in between. All the action sequences are crafted together beautifully, combining dolly shots and slow motion that makes it so enjoyable.

The cast is relatively small but they all give wonderful performances. Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan both did fantastic jobs as well as Bryan Cranston (Little Miss Sunshine) and Albert Brooks (Finding Nemo).

The film is directed by Nicolas Winding Refn (Valhalla Rising, Bronson), who does a fantastic job of representing characters and their emotions with more than just words. Refn combines extravagant music and impressive visuals to convey emotions that can’t be conveyed with words.

The music is so special and so important to this film. The songs are dreamlike and add a certain “rough classiness” to the film. All in all, the songs are perfect for fit for the style of this film.

The cinematography by Newton Thomas Sigel is outstanding as he does something very special with each shot: they all move. There is not one still shot of anybody in the entire movie, which gave the film more life.

Drive to me is a real complete film. It is very a well-rounded film encompassing a great amount of drama mixed with a great yet subtle amount of violence.

Rating: A