With “Drive” having been out for a good 3 years now, I’m a bit late to the game. My good friend, and fellow film critic, David Hughes (no, not the guy from Empire Magazine) told me that this movie was one of his top choices and gave it his highest mark over on Hughes Reviews. One or two others have said I needed to check out this flick and I had mixed reactions. Since I had some spare time, I thought I’d sit down and watch for the first time.

Drive was always marketed to me with two pictures. Ryan Gosling looking out of a car window and Ryan Gosling standing tall with a hammer in his right hand. Two very striking images that brought intrigue to me.

This flick is an American neo-noir arthouse action crime thriller. Yes, that’s a lot of genres in one and yes it pays off. “Drive” isn’t a movie that should be stuck to any particular genre convention and Nicholas Winding Refn knows this entirely, hence when you try to categorise this movie, it’s almost impossible to sum it up.

The plot is quite simple, yet far beneath the skin. An unnamed guy has two jobs, one as a movie stunt double and the other working in an auto-shop fixing cars. This unnamed guy moonlights as a getaway driver for jobs setup by his boss, Shannon. The driver, here now known, soon befriends his neighbour Irene and her son, Belicio. Irene’s husband, Standard Gabriel, is at the time in prison. Standard owes protection money to a gangster named Cook, who beats the crap out of him at first contact. Shannon is eventually killed when mobsters come looking for the driver. Running on his own plans, the driver stops at nothing to protect the ones he cares for. This does include battering a man’s head in with his heel, during a very artistic lift/car-park scene. Is this piece predictable? No. I didn’t see any of the twists and turns due to being encompassed in the visuals and soundtrack, which I will mention a little later. This movie kept me entertained throughout and I really wanted to watch it for a second time once I saw the credits roll.

The unnamed driver is just that, unnamed and untold. We don’t know his stories, we don’t know his life as a whole. We just know what we see on screen, his facial expressions, little dialogue and interaction with others. Of course, it’s the enviously built Ryan Gosling that portrays the character. As I mentioned before, Gosling was the striking imagery of the publicity for the film, back when it was first released. Carey Mulligan plays a smaller, yet still main, role as Irene. She gets tangled in protection money woes from her prison-friendly husband and this leads to the Driver becoming involved in her life. Mulligan puts in a good enough performance to stop her from being pointless. She acts with mainly just her facial expressions just like the Driver, except with a bit more dialogue. This creates a unique effect in the film. Having both characters with little dialogue gives the chance for expression to shine, and it does in heaps.

Bryan Cranston, of course, puts in a brilliant performance. He’s just an auto-shop owner but still creates an impact. His dialogue is more than the main characters, noticeably, and it works well. Albert Brooks, Oscar Isaac, Ron Perlman, Christina Hendricks and others round out this cast. They all work their parts well and the film as a whole really greatly is lifted. The particular scene that stands out shows, as mentioned before, Gosling battering a man with his heel in a lift. This lift is at the entrance of an underground car park. The emotion between Gosling and Mulligan really shines here. You can see Gosling transform like a wolf in the moonlight while Mulligan comes to realise who he really is. It’s extremely impactful and brings out the true colours of the characters. There is no dialogue in this scene, just music and stylistic camera angles. It’s artistic imagery at its finest.

Nicholas Winding Refn isn’t exactly I director I’d ever heard of. I knew of Drive and Only God Forgives quite literally because my good friend, Dave, recommended them highly. Of course I’d seen the Drive posters dotted around the web.

Refn’s artistic direction is one to behold. “Drive” is not made like a conventional Hollywood movie, it goes against code really and glorifies the nitty-gritty of cinema. The camera styles used are varied and editing in a way of which I am actually really unfamiliar. When the Driver is in his car, it’s all pretty much from his point of view without having an actual POV shot, 99% of the time anyways.

The driving stunts, of which there are really a few, work great and are filmed as such. Seeing city shots panned over the skyline look fantastic at night, glorifying the darkness of the city. The cinematography is beautiful as a whole. It’s a visual masterpiece to behold. Of course, Drive has been described as an arthouse flick. It hits the mark perfectly. In fact, Drive is the only arthouse-type movie I think I’ve seen up to this date. A new experience that pays off very well.

The soundtrack is, in a word, fantastic. It’s built up on electro-pop from the 80s style. The opening credits are thrown into the movie with the backing of Kavinsky’s futuristic tune “Nightcall”. From that opening track, until we reach “A Real Hero” by College f. Electric Youth at the end, there is a real journey of futuristic hits with bass hits that go along with your heartbeat. “A Real Hero” really tops off almost a cinematic feel of euphoria that takes your breath away and has the effects of coming down from almost a hypnotic state, well that’s what I felt. All in all, it’s simply incredible.

If you haven’t noticed by now, I loved watching “Drive”. I will most likely be watching it a few more times in the near future. I think it’s a fantastic movie, not really what I was expecting but it blew me away. If you happen to see it anywhere on home media, I highly recommend you sit down for its run-time and embrace the visual masterpiece for what it is, a masterpiece. Could I compare this to any other movie? No, this seems to be quite a unique piece of cinema for me. As for a rating for “Drive”, I give it a solid 10/10.