You think a movie named Drive would actually have a lot more driving in it, wouldn’t ya? Ryan Gosling plays a Hollywood stunt driver who works on the side as a wheelman for hire. His big thing is that he gives you five minutes, to complete whatever it is you’re doing, and then he’s gone, but for that five minutes he’s all yours. Whatever that’s supposed to mean, because he still has to drive you to where the arranged drop off point is, so apparently five minutes is all you get, and the time to drive you to where ever.
The opening scene really excited me. I thought “Hell, if they keep this up, this is going to be on damn good movie.” Then the rest of the movie happened. I was expecting a kind of Transporter deal, bad ass car driving skills, a lot of chase scenes, maybe some stunts I’d be questioning whether or not they could really be done, and then the rest of the movie happened.
Irene (Carey Mulligan) is the rather plain mom who lives a few apartments down. She has a son whose daddy is in prison. Gosling eventually warms up to her and the kid, there are some romantic moments, and some really uncomfortable silences that I think were intended. They may have been added to illustrate the blossoming romance, but I didn’t take it that way.
The Driver’s (Gosling, since he really had no name) friend Shannon (Bryan Cranston) is a disabled ex-stuntman who gets the Driver his gigs both legal and not. Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks) and Nino (Ron Pearlman) were the only diamonds in this rough as they played the big local crime lords who are dabbling into enter the world of NASCAR with the Driver and Shannon.
As most movies goes, the legit and normal life gets crushed when daddy gets out of prison and wants to be a real father figure to the girl down the hall’s kid. Old habits die hard when daddy needs to pull a heist to get some thugs off his back from his bad times in the big house. Enter new neighbor and wife’s new fling, the Driver, to help out. It all goes bad, as most mafia type plots go, and the Driver is left to get vengeance upon afore mentioned crime lords. Ok, back to the car by now right? Yeah, but nothing fantastic or even close to being interesting as the first scene. Then the movie ends. I don’t know why Hollywood is all about the tragic endings. It would seem that throwing in the occasional fade to main character, girl, and boy on a beach in Jamaica is too farfetched. No, we have to see everyone miserable in the end and left wondering what will happen now.
I love that the first words I heard from a viewer behind me were “You still owe me a movie” to the man she was with and that about summed it up for me too. I know somewhere, other reviewers are raving about some theatre tribute, or acting excellence, and I know others have rated the movie pretty high. All I can say is that if you’re going to lead people on with a movie called “Drive,” you had better put a bunch of car stunts and chase scenes in it, otherwise it’s just “Dull.”
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