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The Driver drives for hire. He has no other name, and no other life. When we first see him, he's the wheelman for a getaway car, who runs from police pursuit not only by using sheer speed and muscle, but by coolly exploiting the street terrain and outsmarting his pursuers. By day, he is a stunt driver for action movies. The two jobs represent no conflict for him: He drives.

As played by Ryan Gosling , he is in the tradition of two iconic heroes of the 1960s: Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name and Alain Delon in " Le Samourai ." He has no family, no history and seemingly few emotions. Whatever happened to him drove any personality deep beneath the surface. He is an existential hero, I suppose, defined entirely by his behavior.

That would qualify him as the hero of a mindless action picture, all CGI and crashes and mayhem. "Drive" is more of an elegant exercise in style, and its emotions may be hidden but they run deep. Sometimes a movie will make a greater impact by not trying too hard. The enigma of the driver is surrounded by a rich gallery of supporting actors who are clear about their hopes and fears, and who have either reached an accommodation with the Driver, or not. Here is still another illustration of the old Hollywood noir principle that a movie lives its life not through its hero, but within its shadows.

The Driver lives somewhere (somehow that's improbable, since we expect him to descend full-blown into the story). His neighbor is Irene, played by Carey Mulligan , that template of vulnerability. She has a young son, Benecio (Kaden Leos), who seems to stir the Driver's affection, although he isn't the effusive type. They grow warm, but in a week, her husband, Standard ( Oscar Isaac ), is released from prison. Against our expectations, Standard isn't jealous or hostile about the new neighbor, but sizes him up, sees a professional and quickly pitches a $1 million heist idea. That will provide the engine for the rest of the story, and as Irene and Benecio are endangered, the Driver reveals deep feelings and loyalties indeed, and undergoes enormous risk at little necessary benefit to himself.

The film by the Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (" Bronson "), based on a novel by James Sallis , peoples its story with characters who bring lifetimes onto the screen, in contrast to the Driver, who brings as little as possible. Ron Perlman seems to be a big-time operator working out of a small-time front, a pizzeria in a strip mall. Albert Brooks , not the slightest bit funny, plays a producer of the kinds of B movies the Driver does stunt driving for — and also has a sideline in crime. These people are ruthless.

More benign is Bryan Cranston , as the kind of man you know the Driver must have behind him, a genius at auto repairs, restoration and supercharging.

I mentioned CGI earlier. "Drive" seems to have little of it. Most of the stunt driving looks real to me, with cars of weight and heft, rather than animated impossible fantasies. The entire film, in fact, seems much more real than the usual action-crime-chase concoctions we've grown tired of. Here is a movie with respect for writing, acting and craft. It has respect for knowledgable moviegoers. There were moments when I was reminded of " Bullitt ," which was so much better than the films it inspired. The key thing you want to feel, during a chase scene, is involvement in the purpose of the chase. You have to care. Too often we're simply witnessing technology.

Maybe there was another reason I thought of "Bullitt." Ryan Gosling is a charismatic actor, as Steve McQueen was. He embodies presence and sincerity. Ever since his chilling young Jewish neo-Nazi in " The Believer " (2001), he has shown a gift for finding arresting, powerful characters. An actor who can fall in love with a love doll and make us believe it, as he did in " Lars and the Real Girl " (2007), can achieve just about anything. "Drive" looks like one kind of movie in the ads, and it is that kind of movie. It is also a rebuke to most of the movies it looks like.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Drive (2011)

Rated R for strong brutal bloody violence, language and some nudity

100 minutes

Carey Mulligan as Irene

Oscar Isaac as Standard

Bryan Cranston as Shannon

Albert Brooks as Bernie

Ryan Gosling as Driver

Ron Perlman as Nino

Directed by

Nicolas Winding Refn
Hossein Amini

Based on the novel by

James Sallis

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By A. O. SCOTT

Sept. 15, 2011

A long time ago, as a young filmmaker besotted with the hard-boiled pleasures of classic Hollywood, Jean-Luc Godard claimed that all anyone needed to make a film was a girl and a gun . In his new movie, “Drive,” Nicolas Winding Refn, in thrall to a later Hollywood tradition, tests out a slightly different formula. In this case all you need is a guy and a car.

In the brilliant opening sequence the formula seems to work beautifully. The car is, of all things, a late-model silver Chevy Impala, the kind of generic, functional ride you might rent at the airport on a business trip. The guy is Ryan Gosling — his character has no known proper name, and is variously referred to as “the driver,” “the kid” and “him” — and to watch him steer through Los Angeles at night is to watch a virtuoso at work. Behind the wheel of a getaway car after an uninteresting, irrelevant and almost botched robbery, the driver glides past obstacles and shakes off pursuers, slowing down as often as he accelerates and maintaining a steady pulse rate even as the soundtrack winds up the tension to heart attack levels.

The virtuosity on display is also the director’s, of course, and that, for better and for worse, is pretty much the point of “Drive,” the coolest movie around and therefore the latest proof that cool is never cool enough. Mr. Winding Refn is a Danish-born director (“Bronson,” “Valhalla Rising,” the “Pusher” trilogy), some of whose earlier films have inspired ardent, almost cultish devotion in cinephile circles.

His own love of movies can hardly be doubted, and there’s nothing wrong with his taste. He likes the stripped-down highway movies of the 1960s and ’70s — the kind that Quentin Tarantino celebrated in “Death Proof” — and also the atmospheric masculine melancholy associated with Michael Mann . You might also catch a hint of Paul Schrader’s “American Gigolo” and, with respect to the story rather than to the visual style, a whole bunch of Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone westerns.

Mr. Gosling’s driver, like Mr. Eastwood’s Man With No Name , is a solitary figure with no background or connections but with skills that defy explanation. In addition to his getaway gigs, he drives stunt cars for movies — the source of a witty trompe l’oeil sequence early in the film — and might have a future on the racing circuit.

At least that’s what his friend and sometime employer Shannon (Bryan Cranston) thinks. He has a plan to persuade a couple of local gangsters (Ron Perlman and Albert Brooks) to invest in a car that will be both Shannon’s and the driver’s ticket out of their marginal, sun-baked, film noir existence.

You don’t need me to tell you that the plan goes astray and that before too long the girl and the gun come into play, in more or less that order. The girl’s name is Irene, she is played by Carey Mulligan, and she lives with her young son down the hall from the driver. A neighborly flirtation is disrupted by the return from prison of Irene’s husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac), who gets pulled back into his old life of crime in such a way as to bring out the guns and require from the driver a few gruesomely violent acts of chivalry.

There is a bag full of money, a crosshatching of vendettas and betrayals, and an ambience of crepuscular Southern California anomie. There is also one scene of pure automotive pleasure, when the driver takes Irene and her son on a cruise along the kind of concrete culvert that has often been used for car chases in the past. But this is not “The Big Lebowski,” which took such delight in its status as pastiche that it ended up in a zone of wild originality and real feeling. “Drive” is somber, slick and earnest, and also a prisoner of its own emptiness, substituting moods for emotions and borrowed style for real audacity.

This is not to say that the movie is bad — as I have suggested, the skill and polish are hard to dispute — but rather that it is, for all its bravado, timid and conventional. In the hands of great filmmakers (like Mr. Eastwood and Mr. Godard, to stick with relevant examples) genre can be a bridge between familiar narrative structures and new insights about how people interact and behave. Those are precisely what “Drive” is missing, in spite of some intriguingly nuanced performances.

The softness of Mr. Gosling’s face and his curiously high-pitched, nasal voice make him an unusually sweet-seeming avenger, even when he is stomping bad guys into bloody pulp. And Ms. Mulligan’s whispery diction and kewpie-doll features have a similarly disarming effect. Irene seems like much too nice a person to be mixed up in such nasty business. Not that she’s really mixed up in it. Her innocence is axiomatic and part of the reason the driver goes to such messianic lengths to protect her.

To make the movie work on its own constricted terms, you need — beyond this girl and this guy, and the cars and the weapons — a colorful supporting cast. And this is what saves “Drive” from arch tedium: Mr. Cranston’s wheezing, anxious loser; Christina Hendricks’s seething, taciturn underworld professional; and above all Mr. Brooks’s diabolically nebbishy incarnation of corruption and venality.

In his self-authored comic roles, Mr. Brooks often exudes a passive-aggressive hostility, a latent capacity for violence held in check by neurosis and cowardice. He lets you assume the same in “Drive” until the moment he stabs someone in the eye with a fork. It’s a shocking and oddly glorious moment — something a lot of us, without quite knowing it or being able to explain just why, have been waiting 30 years to see.

“Drive” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Acts of gruesomely violent chivalry and vehicular aggression.

Opens on Friday nationwide.

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn; written by Hossein Amini, based on the book by James Sallis; director of photography, Newton Thomas Sigel; edited by Matthew Newman; music by Cliff Martinez; production design by Beth Mickle; costumes by Erin Benach; produced by Marc Platt, Adam Siegel, John Palermo, Gigi Pritzker and Michel Litvak; released by FilmDistrict. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes.

WITH : Ryan Gosling (Driver), Carey Mulligan (Irene), Bryan Cranston (Shannon), Christina Hendricks (Blanche), Ron Perlman (Nino), Oscar Isaac (Standard) and Albert Brooks (Bernie Rose).

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Drive Reviews

Drive is basically the coolest movie ever. Its dreamlike, electronic soundtrack -- perfect for travel at night -- layers meaningful messages into a violent fairy tale about an unconventional hero.

Full Review | Apr 20, 2023

A patient, Jean-Pierre Melville-esque character study with flourishes of action. But it's more about atmosphere than adrenaline.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 8, 2023

Refn affirms his talents as a genre filmmaker and indulges in excesses and clichés reminiscent of '70s and '80s productions. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Oct 4, 2022

Underneath the crafty and stylish surface lies a fairly simple and conventional action thriller.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 20, 2022

One of the most iconic and stylish films of the twenty-first century

Full Review | Jun 2, 2022

...with no end of great, if ludicrous, fight choreography and stunt work, it is a guilty pleasure for action fans par excellence...

Full Review | Feb 24, 2022

Action buffed down to its essence and serving the purpose of an emotional reaction rather than a strictly visceral one

Full Review | Jan 10, 2022

Working from Hossain Amini's compelling, "driving" narrative script, director Refn delivers a masterclass in mood creation, playing with camera angles, shadows, film speed and sound to keep the audience fully engrossed.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Dec 8, 2021

Drive's bravura opening highlighted that there's more than one way to execute a nail-biting car chase, especially when operating on an indie budget.

Full Review | Sep 20, 2021

Nicolas Winding Refn had an extremely distinct vision and saw something different in rom-com heartthrob Ryan Gosling. And when those two things collided, damn, was it cool.

Full Review | Jul 28, 2021

The movie looks fantastic and is still the best-looking example of the 2010s neon-aesthetic renaissance that it helped kick off.

Full Review | May 5, 2021

Poetic with its minimalism, excessive in its violence, and artistic with its presentation.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Nov 30, 2020

Mulligan has made quite the career for herself in highly acclaimed yet frequently under-seen films.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 6, 2020

A violent yet stylish film that is very well made

Full Review | Jun 29, 2020

In 'Drive', a film directed by Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, we find an ingenious mix of the best of road cinema from the 70s and neo-noir criminal intrigue. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jun 24, 2020

Nicolas Winding Refn demonstrates an incredible understanding for the neon-infused loneliness of L.A. and its crime world underpinnings.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 4, 2020

This story affected me. I'll be watching Drive for the rest of my life, and I recommend it to anyone looking for a disturbing and romantic ride.

Full Review | Apr 1, 2020

It was a surprising Action Crime Drama that totally has you in the end of your seat anticipating on what will happen next.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Jan 11, 2020

Calculating. Methodical. High gloss. Slick. Polished. Drive is the neo-noir thriller of the year.

Full Review | Nov 26, 2019

An exhilarating and terrifying ride.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2019

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Drive – review

T hirty years ago Colin Welland brandished his Chariots of Fire Oscar aloft at the Academy awards ceremony. Echoing the legendary words of Paul Revere to his fellow Bostonian colonials, he shouted: "The British are coming!" Similar hubris, one trusts, will not possess the current wave of Scandinavian filmmakers, though they might be forgiven for chanting: "The Vikings are coming!", that admonitory cry that once had the frightened denizens of our east coast lighting warning beacons and locking up their daughters. These past couple of weeks we've seen the Dane Lone Scherfig follow her British debut, An Education , with One Day , and Tomas Alfredson, the Swedish director of Let the Right One In , cross the North Sea to make his excellent version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy . Now another Dane, Nicolas Winding Refn , who made his name with a series of pictures about Copenhagen's international underworld and three years ago directed impressive British crime film Bronson , has come up with one of the year's most stylish American pictures, Drive .

All these movie-makers bring fresh eyes to the Anglo-American scene, and Drive explicitly refers to the subgenre of the Hollywood action pictures it evokes: one of its characters identifies himself as a former producer of car-chase thrillers, influenced by classy European cinema, which flourished from the late 1960s. The figure the makers have in mind is Philip D'Antoni, celebrated for a trilogy centring on spectacular urban car chases – Bullitt , The French Connection and The Seven-Ups – the first set in San Francisco and starring a super-cool Steve McQueen under the direction of British director Peter Yates. Key pictures in this particular cycle saw British director John Boorman direct Lee Marvin in Point Blank , which brought the style of Resnais and Godard to Los Angeles, Walter Hill make the existential heist classic The Driver under the influence of Jean-Pierre Melville, and William Friedkin and Michael Mann give us, respectively, To Live and Die in LA and epic LA thriller Heat .

Like the novels of Raymond Chandler and the paintings of David Hockney, Drive is both an accurate view of southern California's intoxicating sleaze and glamour and the filtering of it through a European sensibility. And it focuses on one of the most interesting new Hollywood stars, Ryan Gosling , an actor with a face that's currently developing character and registering experience. Like McQueen he communicates through fleeting smiles and slight grimaces. He plays a man inseparable from his car in a city dominated by the automobile. Like the hero of Hill's The Driver he has no name, and nothing is revealed of his background. He works as a skilled mechanic in a garage, does dangerous stunt work for car-chase movies and has ambitions to be a stock-car racer. In his spare time he's an ace getaway driver who never carries a gun.

In all these activities his career is managed by Shannon (Bryan Cranston), an older man, a born loser crippled through an earlier involvement with the mob. He draws the Driver into contact with two vicious local criminals, the bombastic Nino (Ron Perlman), Jewish owner of a flashy pizza parlour, and Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks), a seedy, overbearing sadist who dreams of reviving his former standing in the movie business by bankrolling a stock-car team on the cheap.

A laconic drifter with an obsession but without purpose, the Driver suddenly finds a sort of mission to help Irene (Carey Mulligan), a waitress in a local diner, mother of a young son and wife of a desperate ex-con who's come out of jail with terrible obligations to the underground. In using his skills to help this doomed man, the Driver is drawn into a series of traps that ultimately bring him into the remorseless orbit of the unseen mafia which reaches across the continent from the east coast. He's charting a moral route through a world dominated by a relentless fate, a dark place familiar to students of film noir, where trust is usually rewarded by betrayal and the glimmers of hope are as intangible as moonbeams and as illusory as the promises of neon signs. His customary dress is a silver bowling jacket on the back of which is a large scorpion, a reference, as someone mentions, to the fable related by Orson Welles's devious protagonist in Confidential Report (aka Mr Arkadin ). A scorpion persuades a frog to give him a ride across a river, assuring him that if he were to sting him both would die. But he ends up poisoning the frog and thus killing himself. Why? Because he must act according to his nature.

Like Refn's Danish Pusher trilogy, Drive is an unflinchingly violent film, its action both intense and lyrical. The neatly contrived screenplay is by Iranian-born British writer Hossein Amini (who scripted the screen versions of Wings of the Dove and Jude ). The first-rate, powerfully atmospheric cinematography, mostly nocturnal and of LA's less fashionable areas, is the work of former documentarist Newton Thomas Sigel, who shot The Usual Suspects . The acting is excellent, and especially remarkable is Albert Brooks. Best known as a comic actor (remember him in Broadcast News as the intellectual TV reporter who can't stop sweating?), here he's an overweight bully, a desperate wheeler-dealer walking Chandler's mean streets with one foot on the sidewalk, the other in the gutter. But above all, this is Gosling's movie, confirming his place as a major, versatile presence in American cinema.

Nicolas Winding Refn
The Observer
Ryan Gosling
Carey Mulligan
Action and adventure films
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User reviews

A mysterious Hollywood action film stuntman gets in trouble with gangsters when he tries to help his neighbor's husband rob a pawn shop while serving as his getaway driver. A mysterious Hollywood action film stuntman gets in trouble with gangsters when he tries to help his neighbor's husband rob a pawn shop while serving as his getaway driver. A mysterious Hollywood action film stuntman gets in trouble with gangsters when he tries to help his neighbor's husband rob a pawn shop while serving as his getaway driver.

Nicolas Winding Refn
Hossein Amini
James Sallis
Ryan Gosling
Carey Mulligan
Bryan Cranston
1.8K User reviews
720 Critic reviews
79 Metascore
79 wins & 180 nominations total

Bernie Rose

(as Joey Bucaro)

Young Woman

Bearded Redneck
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Trivia In preparation for his role, Ryan Gosling restored the 1973 Chevy Malibu that his character uses in the film.
Goofs In one shot, the tachometer on Driver's steering column reads 0 RPMs and none of the other gauges are reading normally for driving. This is likely due to the vehicle being towed on a dolly. The tachometer can be seen working in other shots.

[first lines]

Driver : [on phone] There's a hundred-thousand streets in this city. You don't need to know the route. You give me a time and a place, I give you a five minute window. Anything happens in that five minutes and I'm yours. No matter what. Anything happens a minute either side of that and you're on your own. Do you understand?

Driver : Good. And you won't be able to reach me on this phone again.

Alternate versions The preview version of the movie has slightly different dialogue in the telephone conversation between Bernie Rose and Driver preceding the meeting at the Great Wall restaurant. Regular theatrical cut Driver: [to Bernie] You know the story about the scorpion and the frog? Your friend Nino didn't make it across the river. Preview version Bernie Rose: Where's Nino? Driver: He's Gone. The reference to the story about the scorpion and the frog was left out of the preview version.
Connections Featured in Ebert Presents: At the Movies: Episode #1.19 (2011)
Soundtracks Tick of the Clock Written by Johnny Jewel Performed by Chromatics (as The Chromatics) Courtesy of Italians Do It Better Records

User reviews 1.8K

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Oct 7, 2023
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September 16, 2011 (United States)
United States
Le Pacte (France)
Official Facebook
Tay Lái Siêu Hạng
Point Mugu, California, USA (end of the car chase)
FilmDistrict
Madison Wells
See more company credits at IMDbPro
$15,000,000 (estimated)
$35,061,555
$11,340,461
Sep 18, 2011
$78,721,347

Technical specs

Runtime 1 hour 40 minutes
Dolby Digital

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Film Review: ‘Drive,’ Starring Ryan Gosling, Delivers Fresh Guilty-Pleasure Thrills

"Drive" takes the tired heist-gone-bad genre out for a spin, delivering fresh guilty-pleasure thrills in the process.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

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The villain in “ Drive ” admits he used to produce movies — sexy ’80s action pics, to be exact. “One critic called them ‘European,'” the sleazeball brags. Now he’s starring in one: a sleek, retro-styled B-movie that benefits immensely from the aloof, virtually nihilistic edge Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (“Bronson”) brings to the party. Starring Ryan Gosling as a Hollywood stuntman/getaway driver, “Drive” takes the tired heist-gone-bad genre out for a spin, delivering fresh guilty-pleasure thrills in the process. Serious-actor cast, plus pic’s selection in competition at Cannes, should lend prestige to the Sept. 16 domestic release.

After serving up a pair of intense, emotionally draining perfs in “Blue Valentine” and “All Good Things,” Gosling swings to the other extreme with “Drive,” channeling Alain Delon’s cipher-like hitman from “Le Samourai” — a cool-as-ice model that conveniently allows screenwriters to forgo the requisite backstory when creating compassionate-criminal types. The key to such one-dimensional characters is that they live by a rigorous code of conduct, and Gosling’s unnamed Driver is no exception.

By sticking to his own set of rules, Driver excels at his job, which amounts to evading cops by night, only to play one the following day on set. Gosling is chillingly stoic in either context, hardly breaking a sweat in the film’s buckle-up beginning scene. In fact, thesp betrays no emotion until the third time his character encounters pretty next-door neighbor Irene ( Carey Mulligan ) and her young son, Benicio (Kaden Leos). Only then does Driver crack a smile, offering the pair a high-speed tour along the Los Angeles River’s cement culverts.

Popular on Variety

Romantic as their outing proves, Irene isn’t exactly single. Benicio’s dad, Standard (Oscar Isaac), comes home from jail a week later, enlisting Driver in a ploy that involves stealing a million dollars for mostly honorable reasons. Things go bad, blood and brains are splattered about with sickening glee, and Driver finds his chivalrous intentions put to the test as those behind the botched heist threaten to harm Irene and Benicio, whose protection evidently matters enough to Driver that he’s willing to risk his life.

Adapted by Hossein Amini (best known for “The Wings of the Dove” and other highbrow literary fare) from James Sallis’ Los Angeles-set novel, “Drive” doesn’t quite know how to handle the character vacuum at its core, but compensates by surrounding its protag with a colorful supporting ensemble. There’s Bryan Cranston (“Breaking Bad”) as the surrogate father who supplies Driver his wheels; Ron Perlman as a ruthless big shot running schemes from his strip-mall pizza joint; and Albert Brooks, cast deliciously against type, as the aforementioned producer-turned-crime-boss. On the female front, vampy “Mad Men” redhead Christina Hendricks makes an all-too-brief appearance, while Mulligan, though undeniably sweet, seems too wholesome for what would typically be the pic’s femme-fatale role.

Like Quentin Tarantino, Refn is an exploitation-movie junkie, so his cinematic references mirror ’70s and ’80s cult faves like “To Live and Die in L.A.” more than the spare, unforgiving noir novels and films Sallis had in mind. Such questionable influences can be felt from the neon-bright opening credits to Refn’s retro music choices — a mix of tension-ratcheting synthesizer tones and catchy club anthems — that collectively give the film its consistent tone.

Whereas most muscle-car action pics are visually and narratively flat, however, “Drive” displays stunning style. With its spare storytelling economy, this is the sort of film that would launch a career, if only it were Refn’s debut, rather than his eighth feature. Still, it does mark Refn’s first for-hire Hollywood production, giving him the chance to work with the likes of Steven Soderbergh’s go-to composer, Cliff Martinez, and Bryan Singer’s trusted d.p., Newton Thomas Sigel, whose high-contrast widescreen framing puts a harsh new edge on east L.A. locations.

Among a host of impressive setpieces, the most remarkable is a white-knuckle car chase that once again reminds how scarce fancy driving has gotten onscreen, deservedly earning a round of enthusiastic applause from the Cannes crowd. (Though dozens of drivers are credited, Gosling did a number of his own stunts.)

Still, it’s surprising that a film called “Drive” doesn’t feature more driving. Amini’s script barely explores Driver’s status as a stuntman, offering only a thin connection between his high-stakes day job and equally dangerous private life (in the form of a prosthetic mask he dons in the film’s brutal score-settling finale). What the character lacks in psychology, he compensates for through action and iconic costuming. Come Halloween, don’t be surprised to see fans dressed as Driver, wearing a white satin racing jacket with a giant gold scorpion on the back. “Drive” is fetishistic like that, reveling in such details as the growl of a GTO engine or the creak of Gosling’s gloves, and should go a long way to boost the profiles of both its director and star.

Production: A FilmDistrict release presented in association with Bold Films and OddLot Entertainment of a Marc Platt/Motel Movies production. (International sales: Sierra/Affinity, Beverly Hills.) Produced by Marc E. Platt, Adam Siegel, Gigi Pritzker, Michael Litvak, John Palermo. Executive producers, David Lancaster, Gary Michael Walters, William Lischak, Linda McDonough, Jeffrey Stott. Co-producers, Garrick Dion, Jonathan Oakes, James Smith, Frank Capra III. Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Screenplay, Hossein Amini, based on the book by James Sallis.
Crew: Camera (color, widescreen); editor, Matthew Newman; music, Cliff Martinez; music supervisors, Brian McNelis, Eric Craig; production designer, Beth Mickle; art director, Christopher Tandon; set decorator, Lisa Sessions Morgan; costume designer, Erin Benach; sound (Dolby Digital/SDDS/DTS), Robert Eber; sound designers, Lou Bender, Victor Ray Ennis; re-recording mixers, Robert Fernandez, Dave Patterson; stunt coordinator, Darrin M. Prescott; special effects coordinator, Jimmy Lorimer; associate producer, Joe Fineman; assistant director, Frank Capra III; casting, Mindy Marin. Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (competing), May 19, 2011. Running time: 100 MIN.
With: Driver - Ryan Gosling Irene - Carey Mulligan Shannon - Bryan Cranston Bernie Rose - Albert Brooks Standard - Oscar Isaac Nino - Ron Perlman Blanche - Christina Hendricks Benicio - Kaden Leos

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A Twisty, Brutal 'Drive' For A Level-Headed Hero

David Edelstein

The Fast Lane : A Hollywood stunt driver (Ryan Gosling) earns a little extra by driving getaway cars by night. Richard Foreman/FilmDistrict hide caption

The hero of Drive is called "Driver" because that's what he does, and in a thriller this self-consciously existential, what he does is who he is.

He's played by Ryan Gosling as a kind of anti-blowhard. He's taciturn, watchful, cool. He works as a mechanic and sometimes a Hollywood driving stuntman. He also drives getaway cars with astonishing proficiency and a computer-like knowledge of L.A. surface streets, holding a matchstick between his teeth as if to keep his mouth from moving, and his feelings under wraps.

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Genre: Crime, Action, Drama
Running Time: 100 minutes

Rated R for disturbing content and some language

But Driver down deep is one of God's Loneliest Men. He needs someone to love, to risk everything for, to give him a reason to drive.

Drive was a sensation at this year's Cannes Film Festival, where they really go for existential thrillers, and this recalls such arty French favorites as Walter Hill's The Driver and Michael Mann's Thief . The ambience is floating, the characters off to the side of the frame leaving lots of empty space.

What distinguishes Drive from its predecessors is the ultra-graphic violence — the sort that gore lovers call "wet." After each shooting, stabbing and stomping, you won't be saying, "Is he dead?"

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'Sorry About The Noise'

Credit: FilmDistrict

'West On 7th Street Bridge'

'He's A Good Guy'

The director is Nicolas Winding Refn, the Dane who made, among other films, a fast, tense crime trilogy called Pusher . He's a crackerjack craftsman. In an early heist sequence, Driver uses his knowledge of the urban maze to evade both cruisers and 'copters, and it's a tight, twisty piece of staging.

But Refn aims higher. He's said he's interested in the dark side of heroism, the way "righteous adherence to a code" can shift into the realm of the psychotic. I think he's more interested in punkish shock and splatter, and that he's just the guy to take Hollywood action to the next level: slick, amoral and unbelievably vicious.

The movie is cruel, but it isn't cold. Gosling lets emotion gradually bleed through Driver's impassive mask, and he becomes intensely likable. He has a tender relationship with Shannon, his manager in all three arenas — auto-repair, film stunts and crime --who's played by Breaking Bad 's Bryan Cranston in his third big movie of the last three months.

And boy, has Cranston earned that success. Shannon is a sweet, gimpy, luckless man who dreams of building a racecar to be driven by — who else? — Driver. For funding, he goes to Bernie Rose, a creepily inexpressive businessman played by, believe it or not, Albert Brooks.

Love thy neighbor: Our hero's one weakness is his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), with whom he imagines building a life — until harsh realities intrude. Richard Foreman Jr /FilmDistrict hide caption

Love thy neighbor: Our hero's one weakness is his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), with whom he imagines building a life — until harsh realities intrude.

How dirty is Bernie? It's well into Drive before you find out — and maybe an hour until the industrial-strength splatter. In the meantime, Driver becomes involved, platonically, with his neighbor, a pretty young mother named Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her lonely little boy. After some happy montages — ending with Driver giving up crime, hoping against hope for a life with Irene — the woman's husband suddenly gets out of prison, so that ends that pipe dream. Worse, the ex-con turns out to owe money to thugs who threaten to kill his wife and son if he doesn't rob a pawnshop for them. And so Driver is driven to make one last drive.

As you might have gathered from this synopsis, Drive is ridiculously contrived. But it works — and works you over. The carnage is so horrible that people at my screening cried out. And to think that in the middle of much of it is Albert Brooks. There's something magical about his performance. You can taste his pleasure in playing his cards close to the vest, in not — as in his own movies — having to work so hard to be crazily, humiliatingly vulnerable. Let everyone else, including the audience, writhe.

Comic-Con 2011: DRIVE Review

Drive movie review. Matt reviews Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive starring Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman, and Albert Brooks.

Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive works across time and genre. It's set in present-day Los Angeles, uses an 80s score and soundtrack, features a tragic 50s noir protagonist, and wraps everyone up in archetypical figures that manage to feel fresh through strong performances and gorgeous cinematography. It's a film that confidently walks the line between alienating its audience with bold choices but it never strays so far into the obtuse or the strange that you lose the hard-boiled crime story simmering underneath. It constantly challenges the audience to look away with its intensity, its thoughtfulness, and its brutality, but it's too damn entertaining to look away.

Like all great noir protagonists, the Driver (Ryan Gosling) has a code and it makes him good at his job. He's a stunt-driver by day, but at night his true driving talent shines when he works as a wheelman. He can outrun his pursuers when necessary, but his real strength is in his reserve and patience in the face of danger. While he attempts to keep others at a distance, he eventually warms up to his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her young son Benecio. When Irene's husband Standard Gabriel (Oscar Isaac) gets out of prison, he comes home and owes protection money to bad folks. The Driver decides he'll help Gabriel on a job in order to protect Irene and Benecio, but matters then fall apart as shady figures Nino (Ron Perlman) and Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks) come into play. Like all great noir protagonists, The Driver breaks from his code to do something honorable and it leads to his downfall.

In recent years, Gosling has become one of Hollywood's most respected actors and in Drive he turns in a career-best performance. He plays the characters' emotions close to the vest and tries to convey as much as possible with minor expressions. What's remarkable is that he's able to craft such a rich and interesting character without playing it all on the surface and then has to show how the identity deteriorates over the course of the film. It's a bizarre mix of nobility, detachment, and violent madness but Gosling brings it all together to make an utterly compelling character who holds your attention in every single frame.

Telling a cinematic story from the POV of its protagonist isn't simply a matter of doing a POV-shot and Gosling isn't the only one who inhabits the Driver's calm exterior and explosive rage. Refn matches Gosling's performance shot for shot and it's beautiful to see an actor's delivery and a director's vision work in such perfect harmony. However, when the Driver starts to emotionally unravel and struggles to understand his own identity, Refn keeps his cool and manages to balance the insanity of the action with the pathos of the main character.

The film is filled with great performances but despite having heavyweights like Carey Mulligan and Bryan Cranston in the cast, the biggest characters are played by Gosling and Brooks. They're the real powerhouses and I have to give Brooks his due. You have never seen him play a character like this before and he's tremendous as a villain who's beguiling, intelligent, and absolutely ruthless. In some ways, The Driver and Rose are two sides of the same coin in terms of their personalities and their ethics, but that's an essay for another time.

Plenty of essays could be written about Drive . It's the rare film where I immediately wanted to watch it again, but would like to pause it and scribble down plenty of notes. So many great ideas swirl around hard-boiled crime story and you can get lost dissecting it as a character piece, as a product of genre cinema, or even breaking down the cleverness of the cinematography. Sometimes the visuals become overt like when the lights in the elevator dim and the Driver and Irene have their first kiss. Other times it sneaks in like when Irene tells the Driver that her husband is getting out of jail and we can see a red light reflected off their faces. Every shot is purposeful and well-constructed that you just want to take the movie frame-by-frame and sit in awe.

I've been a fan of Refn ever since watch the Pusher trilogy and Bronson , but his American-debut is his strongest film yet. As he did with his previous films, he takes a simple genre (in this case an action-crime flick) and twists its conventions and rethinks its possibilities and comes away with a magnificent reinvention. Drive is an exhilarating ride where the thrills are as raw and intense as the emotions.

Movie review: ‘Drive’

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“Drive” is a Los Angeles neo-noir, a neon-lit crime story made with lots of visual style. It’s a film in love with both traditional noir mythology and ultra-modern violence, a combination that is not ideal.

Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn won the best director award at Cannes, and it’s easy to see why this tale of an emotionless wheelman (Ryan Gosling) who lives to drive and makes a rare stab at human connection with a fetching neighbor took the prize. Impeccably shot by Newton Thomas Sigel, “Drive” always looks dressed to kill. Making fine use of Los Angeles locations, particularly the lonely downtown streets around the L.A. River, “Drive” has a slick, highly romanticized pastel look calculated to win friends and influence people.

Less user-friendly is the film’s disturbing violence. “Drive” doesn’t spend a lot of time on mayhem, but what does get put on screen is intense, unsettling and increasingly grotesque and graphic as the film goes on.

For fans of director Refn, known among chaos aficionados for made-in-Europe violent fare like “The Pusher” trilogy and “Bronson,” this is bloody business as usual. But the mayhem here so clashes with the high style and traditionalism of the rest of the film that when the bloodletting goes into overdrive, so to speak, it throws you out of the picture, diluting the mood rather than enhancing it.

Certainly there could be no more familiar character to movie fans than the film’s protagonist, so iconic he’s reminiscent of Alain Delon’s Jef Costello in Jean-Pierre Melville’s classic “Le Samourai” and as written by Hossein Amini from the James Sallis novel so self-consciously mythologized he doesn’t even have a name.

Coolly played by Gosling, the driver is a monosyllabic loner with a monotone voice, a toothpick in his mouth, and a fondness for a silver racing jacket with a giant yellow scorpion on the back. By day he works in a garage on Reseda Boulevard run by hard luck Shannon (“Breaking Bad’s” Bryan Cranston) and does stunt driving for the movies. Once the sun goes down, he drives getaway cars for criminal types.

“There are 100,000 streets in this city,” the driver says, echoing the famous “there are 8 million stories in the naked city” line of yore. Just tell him where and when to pick you up — and don’t even think about making him wait more than five minutes — and he promises to ferry you to safety. For a price.

“Drive” opens with what might be its most successful, least violent set piece, a getaway from a robbery choreographed to quietly insistent techno music by Johnny Jewel. As he plays cat and mouse with L.A.’s finest, the driver reveals himself to be a highly proficient, emotionless technician with nerves of tempered steel. When the man pulls on his leather driving gloves, it’s best to get out of the way.

Trying to keep as low a profile as possible, the driver lives in an apartment building next to MacArthur Park and shops in the picturesque Big 6 supermarket nearby. To say that he is closed off to all forms of human emotion is putting it very mildly indeed.

But, hey, wouldn’t you know it, living right down the hall from the driver is Irene (Carey Mulligan, underutilized), an attractive young woman who does have a name. She also has a young son named Benicio (Kaden Leos) who the driver inexplicably takes a fatherly interest in. Whatever this film’s strengths, psychological motivation is not one of them.

Before this platonic idyll can get out of first gear, Irene’s husband Standard (the gifted Oscar Isaac) comes back from the prison where he’s been conveniently warehoused and the driver prepares to retreat into his mythic shell.

But wait. Standard comes home to trouble with some bad guys, bad guys who make the mistake of threatening Irene and young Benicio. Ever the knight errant, the driver volunteers his help, but everything starts to go wrong in ways that lead to all that bloodshed.

Though many aspects of “Drive” are, for better or worse, intentionally familiar, there is one element that is different, and that is Albert Brooks’ performance as Bernie Rose, a genial but dangerous criminal of the driver’s acquaintance. The actor brings a fine air of scornful, eccentric menace to the role. When people die in his presence, it’s not laughter they’re dying of.

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Ryan Gosling in DRIVE. Courtesy of FilmDistrict and Bold Films and OddLot Entertainment

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Buckle up for the existential bloodbath of Drive , a brilliant piece of nasty business that races on a B-movie track until it switches to the dizzying fuel of undiluted creativity. Damn, it’s good. You can get buzzed just from the fumes coming off this wild thing.

That’s Ryan Gosling at the wheel. He plays Driver (I told you it was existential), a Hollywood stunt racer who moonlights as a getaway wheel man. Gosling is dynamite in the role, silent, stoic, radiating mystery. Driver isn’t into planning robberies. He doesn’t carry a gun. “I drive,” he says. And he proves it in an opening chase scene so thrillingly intense and cleanly edited it will give you whiplash.

Sharing Drive ‘s metaphorical wheel is Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, a sensation on the Euro art-house circuit with the bruising Pusher trilogy, Valhalla Rising and Bronson . Refn makes his Hollywood debut with Drive without putting his soul or his balls on the auction block. Refn is a virtuoso, blending tough and tender with such uncanny skill that he deservedly won the Best Director prize at Cannes.

Drive was once intended as a fast-and-furious blockbuster for Hugh Jackman. Then Gosling stepped in and met Refn. As the actor drove the director home, the radio blasted REO Speedwagon, and Refn began rocking out. That was it. Their movie would evoke what it is to drive around listening to music and trying to feel something.

Drive is a genre movie. So watch for comparisons, especially to films of the Seventies and Eighties that pulsate with a synth score. Think early Michael Mann ( Thief ) and William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. Driver is a loner, suggesting Alain Delon in Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï . Like Alan Ladd in George Stevens’ classic Western Shane , the loner meets a woman, Irene (Carey Mulligan), with a young son (Kaden Leos). She also has an ex-con husband (Oscar Isaac), so Driver must hold in his urges until, well, he can’t.

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Chances are you could play the name-that-influence game for days, and I’d happily join you. But that’d be a disservice to Drive , since Refn, like Quentin Tarantino, has the gift of assimilating film history into a fresh take carrying his DNA. Take his fetishistic eye for detail, from Driver’s toothpick to the satin bomber jacket with a gold scorpion on its back.

Refn is wicked good with actors, paring down the dialogue in the script by Hossein Amini (deftly adapted from James Sallis’ novel) so that the backstory must play out on their faces. Challenge met. Gosling mesmerizes in a role a lesser actor could tip into absurdity. Bryan Cranston, on fire with Breaking Bad , brings wit and compassion to Driver’s fatherly mentor. And Mulligan is glorious, inhabiting a role that is barely there and making it resonant and whole. Prepare to be blown away by Albert Brooks, cast way against type as crime boss Bernie Rose. Brooks, an iconically sharp comic voice, has toyed with villainy before (see Out of Sight ), but never like this. Brooks’ performance, veined with dark humor and chilling menace (watch him with a blade), deserves to have Oscar calling.

Violence drives Drive . A heist gone bad involving a femme fatale (an incendiary cameo from Mad Men ‘s Christina Hendricks) puts blood on the walls. Ditto a pounding Driver delivers at a strip club. An elevator scene with Driver, Irene and an assassin is time-capsule sexy and scary. In league with camera whiz Newton Thomas Sigel and composer Cliff Martinez, Refn creates a fever dream that sucks you in. Or maybe you’ll hate it. Drive is a polarizer. It’s also pure cinema, a grenade of image and sound ready to blow.

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Crime drama is exciting, well-made, and shockingly violent.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

"The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry"

The main character leads a life of crime, and his

This movie starts off slowly and quietly, but soon

Two or three topless women are on view for a long

The main character doesn't swear, but other charac

Some products appear or are mentioned as backgroun

The main character doesn't drink or smoke, but sup

Positive Messages

"The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry" seems to the best way to describe the movie's message, such that it is, and it's not very hopeful. The main character upsets his stripped-down, carefully planned life and opens his heart just a bit but finds that it results in nothing but pain and violence.

Positive Role Models

The main character leads a life of crime, and his only good deed involves more crime. He also falls in love with a married woman, and all of his actions result in violence.

Violence & Scariness

This movie starts off slowly and quietly, but soon there are astonishing amounts of bloody, gory, shocking violence. A woman's head is blown off with a shotgun. The main character beats up a man and stomps on his head until it squashes like a pumpkin. He slaps and threatens a woman. He also threatens a man with a claw hammer and a bullet. Also slicing and stabbing, shooting, murders, and characters beaten up and bloodied. A small boy isn't exactly shown to be in danger, but in one scene, he displays a bullet that some bad guys have given him as a warning.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Two or three topless women are on view for a long time during a nightclub scene. The main characters kiss, even though the woman is already married. Some minor flirting and/or innuendo.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

The main character doesn't swear, but other characters do frequently, using words like "f--k," "s--t," "p---y," "a--hole," "hell," and more. Characters also use the middle finger gesture and racial slurs like "chink" and "kike."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Some products appear or are mentioned as background. A Coca-Cola sign is shown more than once in a pizza parlor. A scene takes place at a Denny's restaurant, and the name of the character's car, a Chevy Impala, is mentioned several times over a police scanner.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

The main character doesn't drink or smoke, but supporting characters are occasionally seen smoking cigarettes or drinking socially. One key character mentions several types of drugs -- offering them to the main character -- but they're never shown.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this superbly made crime drama (which won the prestigious Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival) starts off quietly but eventually contains shocking amounts of violence, including a woman's head getting blown apart by a shotgun blast and the main character stomping a man's head until it squashes like a pumpkin. Language is also very strong, with multiple uses of "f--k," "s--t," and "p---y." Several women are topless in one long scene, and the two main characters have a romantic relationship even though she's already married. The main character is a criminal without many redeeming qualities, but he's still fascinating. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

Parents say (17)
Kids say (54)

Based on 17 parent reviews

What's the Story?

The "driver" ( Ryan Gosling ) drives stunt cars for the movies by day -- and by night he hires out his services for criminals who need getaway cars. He works with hard-luck-but-cheerful mechanic Shannon ( Bryan Cranston ) on both jobs. He's incredibly skilled, lives a quiet, simple, Zen-like life, and has all his bases covered -- until he meets his pretty neighbor, Irene ( Carey Mulligan ), and her young son, Benicio (Kaden Leos). When Irene's husband is released from prison, the driver reluctantly agrees to help him on a job that will get him out of debt and out of trouble. But everything goes wrong, and the fallout leads back to a pair of sinister thugs ( Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman ). Can the driver steer a way out of this mess?

Is It Any Good?

Danish-born director Nicolas Winding Refn isn't exactly a household name, but he might be after DRIVE; he might also elicit comparisons to Quentin Tarantino , which would be entirely deserved. Drive is steeped in movies, especially moody 1980s films by Ridley Scott , Michael Mann , and William Friedkin , as well as any genre films about stoic, secretive heroes -- but at the same time it feels like something new. Its style prevails over its substance, but what style!

But that's not meant to disparage the film's substance; clearly Refn adores actors, and he finds many tiny moments of warmth, adoration, and humor within the film's steely surface. In one impeccably framed scene, the driver and the girl merely smile at one another, hinting at untold depths. Every actor delivers his or her best work, especially the colorful villains and sidekicks. Only the movie's extreme, shocking violence could get in the way of total adoration for this sublime piece of genre work.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the impact of the movie's extreme violence . How does it compare to what you see in horror movies? Which is more upsetting? Why?

Is the main character a "hero"? Are viewers meant to find him sympathetic even though he's a criminal? What makes "bad guy" characters compelling?

What is the movie's attitude toward women? What are the female characters like? Are they three-dimensional?

Is the little boy in this movie ever in true danger, or is the danger only suggested? What's the difference?

Movie Details

In theaters : September 16, 2011
On DVD or streaming : January 30, 2012
Cast : Bryan Cranston , Carey Mulligan , Ryan Gosling
Director : Nicolas Winding Refn
Inclusion Information : Female actors
Studio : FilmDistrict
Genre : Drama
Run time : 100 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : strong brutal bloody violence, language and some nudity
Last updated : April 22, 2024

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‘drive’: cannes 2011 review.

The arty Danish fast-cars-and-crime thriller, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, should be promotable to good box office results from both discerning and popcorn audiences come September.

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

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Screen Rant

'drive' review.

With 'Drive', director Nicolas Winding Refn mixes high art, bloody violence and pulpy crime drama into a high-octane thriller punctuated by some excellent performances.

Screen Rant's Kofi Outlaw Reviews Drive

The word "auteur" gets thrown around somewhat frivolously these days - but in the case of Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, the term is a fitting one. Some movie fans have already come to revere Refn's talent for taking intense violence and elevating it to the level of high art (see: the Pusher trilogy, Bronson , Valhalla Rising ), while other moviegoers are not yet aware of the director's talent.

Drive , Refn's adaptation of the pulp crime novel by author James Sallis, arrives to the screen as a film that is well-acted, visually captivating, intensely thrilling, and gruesomely violent. That may seem like an odd mix of parts to have under the hood - but to Refn's credit, Drive run as smoothly and beautifully as a high-octane sports car.

The film follows "Driver" (Ryan Gosling) a young Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as an expert getaway driver. Driver is almost robotic in his methodical approach to both crime and life, so it is a veritable Pandora's Box when he begins to take notice of his neighbor, Irene (Carey Mulligan), and her young son Benicio. Before long, Driver finds himself breaking from his strict discipline in favor of life possibilities he never imagined. But the light of hope dims fast when Irene's husband, Standard Gabriel (Oscar Isaac), returns home from prison.

Things only get darker when Standard Gabriel gets strong-armed by local mobsters into doing some dirty work. Driver, out of loyalty to Irene, breaks his own code by getting mixed up business he has no hand in - business that quickly goes sideways and places Driver, his partner Shannon (Bryan Cranston), Irene and her family, all in the crosshairs of local gangsters Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks) and Nino (Ron Perlman). From there, things get bloody as Driver and the gangsters play a violent game of cat and mouse, forcing Driver to unleash a terrible side of himself that no one is prepared to face.

Refn creates a movie experience like none other - though that may be a drawback for some viewers. Drive is an artist's rendition of a neo-noir flick, offering us moments of high-class visual iconography without sacrificing the dark, gritty, working-class edge that is the defining quality of Film Noir. The director also evidences a smart capability for action: Drive has three major chase sequences, and each is composed in a way that is radically different from the others - and yet, each fits perfectly with the tone of the film at that moment. Refn also handles violence in a smart and viscerally effective way, to the effect that sound, suggestion, and a bit of blood spatter feel more gut-wrenching and nauseating than full-on gore. Throw in a perfectly synched soundtrack of '80s techno throwback tunes, and what you get it is a mismatched set of parts that only a true auteur could assemble into a smooth, roaring ride. And Refn doesn't just manage to fit all the parts together - he waxes and polishes this film to a fine shine.

That said, mainstream movie goers should be advised: Drive is not at all the standard action/thriller you may be expecting.

For one thing, this is a film that is almost beautifully serene and quiet for a good chunk of its runtime. Driver himself says little to nothing in the way of dialogue; it takes an actor of Gosling's caliber to convey all the thoughts and muted emotions of this tightly coiled enigmatic figure, while still making him interesting and fun to watch. Irene is also the silent type, and much of her connection to Driver has to do with the fact they can speak volumes to one another without speaking at all. Much of Mulligan and Gosling's time onscreen together is a conversation of glances, expressions and long stares. And, while it is a testament to both actors that the chemistry is there, some viewers will be agitated by the distance at which we are kept (though, it is a direct echo of Driver's detached existence). On the other hand, there is little chance that even mainstream viewers won't enjoy the scene-chewing performances of the supporting cast - specifically Bryan Cranston ( Breaking Bad ), Albert Brooks ( The Simpons Movie ) and Ron Perlman ( Sons of Anarchy ).

Cranston gets the task of playing Driver's partner/foil, Shannon, a reckless and hapless chatterbox who is constantly trying (and failing) to strike his fortune in life. It's a character who could've been as annoyingly over-the-top as Driver could've been frustratingly vacant, but like Gosling, Cranston is an actor at the top of his game and turns a bit character into something significant and memorable.

Perlman is used to playing big characters, and someone like Nino is admittedly a cakewalk for the actor by now, but no matter: his character is simply the foil for the real star of the show, which is Albert Brooks as Bernie Rose. Bernie and Nino are almost like the older, more serpentine version of Shannon and Driver, with Bernie possessing the same methodical methods and coiled fury as Driver himself. Brooks, a comedy icon, is playing totally against type here, and yet manages to create a villain worthy of Awards season. Many of the films' best moments are when Bernie Rose is onscreen - and that includes moments of both humor and horror. Brooks breezes through the range of his character as if he's been playing the bad guy forever, and is still loving it. Definitely a second-wind performance from a longtime performer.

While the resolution of the film's crime drama narrative is somewhat foreseeable, Refn conveys it in a smart and unique way that will likely leave audiences debating and discussing their mixed interpretations. It's an artistic finale that certainly elevates the conventions of the genre - but again, viewers looking for a conventional crime drama experience will likely be put-off by how things end. Still, this may be Refn's best work yet, and will earn him a few more admirers for what is going to be a fast-expanding fanbase, should he keep crafting cinematic expereiences that are this good.

If you're still making up you mind about seeing the film, check out the Drive trailer below:

Drive will be in theaters on September 16, 2011.

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2011 Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

Get In. Get Out. Get Away

Driver is a skilled Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver for criminals. Though he projects an icy exterior, lately he's been warming up to a pretty neighbor named Irene and her young son, Benicio. When Irene's husband gets out of jail, he enlists Driver's help in a million-dollar heist. The job goes horribly wrong, and Driver must risk his life to protect Irene and Benicio from the vengeful masterminds behind the robbery.

Ryan Gosling Carey Mulligan Bryan Cranston Albert Brooks Oscar Isaac Christina Hendricks Ron Perlman Kaden Leos Jeff Wolfe James Biberi Russ Tamblyn Joe Bucaro III Tiara Parker Tim Trella Jimmy Hart Tina Huang Andy San Dimas John Pyper-Ferguson Craig Baxley Jr Kenny Richards Joe Pingue Dieter Busch Chris Muto Rachel Dik Cesar Garcia Steven Knoll Mara LaFontaine Teonee Thrash Ralph Lawler Show All… Rio Ahn Laurene Landon

Director Director

Nicolas Winding Refn

Producers Producers

Adam Siegel Marc Platt John Palermo Gigi Pritzker Michel Litvak Frank Capra III Garrick Dion Joe Fineman Jonathan Oakes Alice S. Kim James Smith

Writer Writer

Hossein Amini

Original Writer Original Writer

James Sallis

Casting Casting

Mindy Marin Kara Lipson

Editor Editor

Matthew Newman

Cinematography Cinematography

Newton Thomas Sigel

Assistant Directors Asst. Directors

Dieter Busch Frank Capra III

Additional Directing Add. Directing

Darrin Prescott

Executive Producers Exec. Producers

Linda McDonough Gary Michael Walters Peter Schlessel Jeffrey Stott David Lancaster Bill Lischak

Lighting Lighting

Anthony G. Nakonechnyj

Camera Operators Camera Operators

Luca Mercuri Gregory Lundsgaard

Production Design Production Design

Beth Mickle

Art Direction Art Direction

Christopher Tandon

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Lisa K. Sessions Michael Mestas Raymond Waff

Special Effects Special Effects

James Lorimer William H. Schirmer

Visual Effects Visual Effects

John Myers Jerry Spivack Dottie Starling

Stunts Stunts

Darrin Prescott Craig Baxley Jr Michael Runyard Jeremy Fry Lane Leavitt J. Travis Merendino Donny Bailey Dean Bailey Dieter Busch Robert Nagle R.A. Rondell Larry Rippenkroeger Mam Smith Rich Rutherford Danny Wynands Joe Bucaro III Jody Hart Jimmy Hart Allan Padelford Ed McDermott II Scotty Richards Kenny Richards

Composer Composer

Cliff Martinez

Songs Songs

David Grellier Vincent Belorgey

Sound Sound

Lon Bender Christopher Moriana Kerry Ann Carmean Victor Ray Ennis Peter Zinda Robert Fernandez Dave Paterson Catherine Harper Krissopher Chevannes

Costume Design Costume Design

Erin Benach

Makeup Makeup

Gerald Quist Ronnie Specter

Hairstyling Hairstyling

Linda Arnold Medusah Michael Moore

FilmDistrict Bold Films Marc Platt Productions OddLot Entertainment Motel Movies Newbridge Film Capital

Releases by Date

20 may 2011, 17 jun 2011, 06 aug 2011, 13 aug 2011, 03 sep 2011, 10 sep 2011, 16 sep 2011, 17 sep 2011, 24 sep 2011, 06 oct 2011, 11 oct 2011, 02 nov 2011, 11 nov 2011, 12 nov 2011, 26 feb 2012, 21 apr 2012, 15 sep 2011, 22 sep 2011, 23 sep 2011, 25 sep 2011, 30 sep 2011, 05 oct 2011, 07 oct 2011, 12 oct 2011, 21 oct 2011, 26 oct 2011, 27 oct 2011, 03 nov 2011, 09 nov 2011, 10 nov 2011, 17 nov 2011, 18 nov 2011, 08 dec 2011, 09 dec 2011, 28 dec 2011, 05 jan 2012, 25 jan 2012, 27 jan 2012, 10 feb 2012, 01 mar 2012, 02 mar 2012, 31 mar 2012, 03 may 2012, 17 may 2012, 18 may 2012, 03 jan 2014, 10 apr 2015, 22 mar 2012, 16 aug 2022, 30 jan 2012, 08 feb 2012, 05 mar 2012, 23 apr 2021, 06 sep 2023, releases by country.

Theatrical 16
Theatrical MA15+
Premiere Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival
Premiere Toronto International Film Festival
Theatrical 18A
Theatrical 14
Premiere Cyprus Film Days
Theatrical 15
Physical DVD
Premiere Helsinki International Film Festival
Theatrical K-18
Premiere 12 Cannes Film Festival
Premiere Deauville American Film Festival
Premiere L'Étrange Festival
Theatrical 12
Physical DVD & Blu-Ray
Digital 12 VOD
Physical 12 4K UHD
Theatrical 18
Premiere Athens Film Festival
Theatrical K-17
Theatrical III
Theatrical A
Theatrical 17+
Theatrical T
Theatrical R15+
Theatrical N-16
Theatrical B15

Netherlands

Premiere Amsterdam Film Week
Physical 16 DVD, Blu ray
Theatrical 16 RTL 5

Philippines

Theatrical R-13
Theatrical M/16

Russian Federation

Premiere Amfest 11 American Film Festival
Theatrical 18+
Premiere Belgrade Film Festival
Theatrical M18

South Africa

South korea.

Premiere Donostia-San Sebastian International Film Festival
Premiere Festival Internacional de Cinema Negre de Manresa
Premiere Stockholm International Film Festival

Switzerland

Premiere 16 Locarno Film Festival
Premiere Empire Big Screen
Premiere R Los Angeles Film Festival
Theatrical R

United Arab Emirates

Physical Blu-ray

100 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by ksenija ★★★ 13

when ryan gosling said " " , man i felt that

Review by #1 gizmo fan ★★★★★

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

if ryan gosling kissed me like that I would have no problem with him brutally murdering people

Review by kate ★★★★★ 13

Do you guys ever wonder how we, as a society, got to and from places before Ryan Gosling invented driving 6 years ago?

Review by Corey Pierce ★ 217

DRIVER leaves his apartment to the noise of Desire's "Under Your Spell", which has been nonsensically playing at Standard and Irene's party next door to the zombied joy of their guests. DRIVER looks to their door, to see if perhaps the staff at Pitchfork had robbed the place and left their iTunes playlist behind.

We pause for 4 seconds, as IRENE must calibrate her emptiest gaze in an attempt to convey longing, and match DRIVER's own highway speed emptiness disguised as longing.

We pause for 5 more seconds, IRENE has clearly sensed a staring contest has begun. DRIVER puts on his best Creepface to gain an advantage.

IRENE: Sorry about the noise

Review by #1 gizmo fan ★★★★★ 20

i'm not gonna sit here and pretend this hasn't been said before, cause it sure as hell has, but the elevator scene is perfect. i mean. the music, the silence, THE KISS, the fact that it's his goodbye. thank you, nicolas, for that. for everything.

Review by Jay ★★★★ 12

well maybe if ryan gosling just listened to vroom vroom by charli xcx and therefore drove a lil faster MAYBE he wouldnt have got into this mess

Review by shannon ★★★★★ 13

ryan gosling is hot so 5 stars

Review by James (Schaffrillas) ★★ 92

Y'all are gonna hate me for this but I can't remember the last time I was simultaneously this bored AND turned off by unnecessary gratuitous gore. Elevator scene slaps tho

Review by Karst ★★★★½ 9

Yes, I just saw it for the first time Yes, I loved everything about it Yes, Ryan Gosling

Review by isabelle ☆ ★★★★★ 4

Review by kj ★★★★½ 7

happy 10 years to carey mulligan’s hardest role, having to choose between ryan gosling and oscar isaac

Review by Luca ★★★½ 7

This whole movie wouldn’t have happened if the driver wasn’t such a huge simp

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DVD & Streaming
Action/Adventure , Drama , Mystery/Suspense

Content Caution

In Theaters

September 16, 2011
Ryan Gosling as Driver; Carey Mulligan as Irene; Bryan Cranston as Shannon; Albert Brooks as Bernie Rose; Oscar Isaac as Standard; Christina Hendricks as Blanche; Ron Perlman as Nino

Home Release Date

January 31, 2012
Nicolas Winding Refn

Distributor

FilmDistrict Distribution

Movie Review

Driver drives. Most mornings he drives to work—to a garage where he’s a mechanic. Some days he drives onto movie sets, working as a stunt man. And he’ll be driving a stock car on the weekends if he tunes his carburetor just right.

Oh, and he also drives the getaway car for thieves who need a little extra horsepower. It’s straight freelance for him: He doesn’t carry a gun, doesn’t take part in the robbery (he tells himself and others), and if the heist takes too long, he’ll simply leave the crooks behind and drive away.

Why wouldn’t he, after all? Driver drives.

But even the most avid driver can’t permanently mind-meld with a straight eight. He’s got to deal with people occasionally, and one day he elects to drive his pretty neighbor, Irene, and her little boy, Benicio, home from the grocery store. Before long, Driver’s driving them other places too—sometimes to a sublime little creek bed, sometimes just around—and he discovers that life isn’t isolated to fuel injectors and fan belts. He begins to long for a sense of companionship, even family.

Until Irene’s husband, Standard, comes back from prison. His arrival puts the kibosh on any romantic intentions Driver may have had toward Irene. But he still hangs out with the fam—and learns that Standard owes big-time money to a handful of thugs. It’s protection money for keeping him safe in jail. Do one last job for us , they tell him, and we’ll call it good. If you don’t, we’re coming after you and your family . And they give Standard’s little boy a bullet to, well, drive the point home.

Standard doesn’t want to do the job. But it seems like the only way to keep his family safe. And Driver volunteers to help. So the two of them, plus an accomplice named Blanche, head to a pawnshop for a five-minute, $45,000 stickup.

Four minutes later, Standard’s dead, his blood all over the pavement. And before the afternoon’s up, Blanche is dead too—most of her head splattered against a motel wall. Driver’s left literally holding the bag, a bag filled with a million dollars.

Killers are gunning for Driver now, and maybe for Irene and Benicio too. So you’d think Driver might get behind the wheel of his nearest car and vroom far, far away. But he won’t. Not with a quasi-family to protect. He has a new motivation now—a new drive, if you will. He knows the road before him and he’s determined to cruise down it to the end: theirs or his.

Positive Elements

Driver is far from some innocent, nitrous-powered hero. He’s involved in some pretty shady work and, as the movie rolls, there are strong indicators that he wasn’t always “just” a hands-off driver. (Blood—even when it’s being splashed by the gallon—doesn’t much phase him.) But Irene and Benicio bring out his humanity. In return he helps Irene through a difficult stretch and gives of himself to Benicio too.

Obviously we could (and will) take issue with the particulars of this extramarital relationship: Driver and Irene are attracted to each other. But Driver really does care for her and her son—and when Standard is released, he cares for him too. He shifts uneasily but sincerely from surrogate father and almost lover to family friend, trying to help in the only way he can. (Although, I’ll take issue with some of the ways he does that too.)

Standard isn’t quite sure what to make of Driver and the attention he’s been showering on his wife and child. But he tries to be both trusting and generous, thanking Driver for his help and giving him and his wife the benefit of the doubt. He is, for a time, Drive’ s most admirable character, showing a real desire to change his ways. “It’s a shameful thing that I did,” he say upon his release from prison, “and I’ve got a lot of making up to do. Second chances are rare, and that’s worth celebrating.” When asked to perform the heist, he at first refuses—and is beaten horribly for doing so. Only when Benicio is threatened does he acquiesce.

Sexual Content

Over dinner, Standard tells Benicio and Driver the story of how he and Irene first met. She was 17, he says, and so he “illegally” walked up to her and introduced himself. “It was the best day of my life,” he says, adding that a year later, Benicio “popped out.”

Driver goes to a strip club and barges into a dressing room in which are several topless woman. Driver and Irene hold hands. (Standard’s still alive.) And after Standard’s killed, Driver plants a passionate kiss on Irene in an elevator. A crime lord makes references to female genitalia.

Violent Content

In some ultra-violent R-rated movies, the gore and body count is so hyperbolically extreme that by the time the credits roll, the audience begins to laugh at every evisceration, every decapitation, every outlandish use of red food coloring.

Watching Drive , no one laughed in the theater I was in.

Drive lulls viewers into a false calm for the first third of the story before unholstering its gun and firing—both at its characters and its audience—with both barrels. The violence, at least at first, feels quite real, and it’s all the more troubling because of it.

Standard is brutally gunned down in a parking lot, the sound of the shots pounding through the air like a crowbar. Blanche dies in a motel bathroom: A thug takes aim at her head with a shotgun and we watch it vanish in a spray of blood. Driver escapes, but only by killing both killers—dispatching one by ramming a shower rod through his neck and chest. (Afterwards, Driver lets loose a curious half-smile, blood coating his face in rivulets, like on a car windshield during a light rain.)

Over the next half-hour or so, the film continues to amp up the atrocities. Driver smashes a thug’s fingers with a hammer and threatens to pound a bullet into the man’s forehead. A crime boss stabs an underling in the eye with a fork before puncturing his throat several times with a large kitchen knife. Driver stomps on someone’s head in an elevator until the man’s skull opens like a rotten cantaloupe—then stamps some more for good measure.

A man is forced to drown (offscreen). One man slits another’s arm to the elbow, cooing over him as his victim bleeds out. Standard is brutally beaten, and we see his face bloodied and bruised. Two people stab each other in a parking lot. (We see their shadows.) Driver pries open someone’s mouth with a hammer and forces him to swallow a bullet. His clothes are stained with blood, and the camera lingers on his blood-streaked sneakers. A “doctor” grotesquely picks pieces of shrapnel out of Driver’s arm. Driver slaps a woman across the face and threatens additional violence if she doesn’t tell him the truth.

One car rams another, sending it flying off a small cliff. A harrowing car chase ends with a crash. A stunt car flips over during the filming of a movie.

Crude or Profane Language

More than 30 f-words, a half-dozen s-words and a smattering of other profanities, including “a‑‑,” “h‑‑‑,” “d‑‑n” and “p‑‑‑y.” God’s and Jesus’ names are each abused once. We see an obscene hand gesture.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Characters smoke cigarettes. Someone offers Driver a variety of drugs, including benzidine and caffeine, to help him stay awake. Wine bottles are seen at a restaurant.

Other Negative Elements

The film’s main evildoers are a duplicitous bunch, often lying about their intentions. Even Driver’s supposed best friend, Shannon, isn’t all that honest. And it’s suggested that he often takes advantage of Driver as something of an inside joke.

Would it be redundant at this point to say that characters are guilty of committing traffic violations?

Drive is a story of what could’ve been.

It begins as an atmospheric thriller—one that impresses through minimalism. The characters barely talk, barely move, it seems. The first “action” sequence is a “languid” drive through town as Driver tries to elude police in an anonymous Chevy Impala: There are no crashes, no explosions—and yet the scene is white-knuckle all the way through. Drive , in its early going, is taut without being terribly tawdry.

Am I going to actually like this film ? I thought to myself a half-hour in.

Alas, there was no chance of that—not when the bullets began flying. Director Nicolas Winding Refn leads viewers quietly into the film and then, without a blink, takes out a metaphorical kneecap. When he does, perhaps because of the understated intro, it feels so … violent. Brutally so. Gratuitously so. Refn seems to want his audiences to suffer and uses repetition to ensure that they do. But instead of adding to the story, so carefully constructed in the beginning, his method crushes it with a claw hammer.

The film is pretty problematic regardless, of course. Driver, our supposed hero, is also a lawbreaker and, in the end, a murderer. He and Irene engage in a relationship that, had Standard been released just a wee bit later, would’ve surely ended up in bed. And Driver’s way of helping a family in need is by helping with a heist.

Still, it’s the cut-and-dried content I remember most. The murder. The blood. The way Driver stomps on a man’s head and how, long after the skull has been caved and crushed, keeps driving his heel into the gore, again and again.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Pop Culture

Ten Years Later, ‘Drive’ Still Goes

In 2011, Nicolas Winding Refn broke into the mainstream with the help of a laconic Ryan Gosling, a synth-heavy soundtrack, and a hyperviolence that divided audiences

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Nicolas Winding Refn prefers shooting his films chronologically , so as we reflect on the 10-year anniversary of Drive , we might as well start with the opening sequence . Using minimal exposition—an appropriate decision considering the lead character is never given a name—the movie establishes that our protagonist (played by Ryan Gosling) is a getaway driver for hire within Los Angeles’s criminal underbelly. The Driver—that’s what we’ll call him—gives his associates a five-minute window to do their thing, a half-assed robbery that Refn has little interest in explaining. (To paraphrase an iconic quote from a movie whose director Refn is trying to emulate: The driving is the juice .) The ensuing car chase is less high octane than cerebral: a cat-and-mouse game between the Driver and the cops, wordless save for the police scanner and a Clippers game playing on the radio. Of course, that Clippers game isn’t just background noise, as the ingenious climax sees the Driver hide in plain sight at the Staples Center parking garage just as the fourth quarter comes to a close.

Released in the same year as Fast Five , a delirious blockbuster that culminates with a giant vault tearing through the streets of Rio de Janeiro, Drive ’s bravura opening highlighted that there’s more than one way to execute a nail-biting car chase, especially when operating on an indie budget. If the Fast & Furious franchise represented where Hollywood was headed—its street racers turning into physics-defying superheroes that would compete with the likes of Marvel—then Drive was a throwback molded by neo-noir classics like Bullitt , The Driver , and Thief . As far as first impressions go, Drive ’s opening car chase was one hell of a table-setter; it’s among the strongest sequences of Refn’s entire career. At the same time, though, Drive is a microcosm of what makes the Danish auteur so polarizing .

While he already had seven feature films under his belt, Drive was Refn’s commercial breakthrough, grossing over $75 million and landing on many critics’ year-end lists in 2011. But Drive ’s critical adoration, which also included a Best Director win at the Cannes Film Festival, belies a more uneven response among mainstream audiences. The film earned an underwhelming C-minus rating on Cinemascore, likely due to the fact that it bucked the expectation of a more straightforward action thriller. One woman in Michigan even filed a lawsuit (!) against Drive ’s distributors over its misleading trailers. (I sure hope nobody sues James Wan for Malignant ’s bonkers third act .)

Perhaps that feeling of a bait-and-switch is elevated because Drive initially seems like a more conventional film, with the opening sequence followed by a developing romance between the Driver and his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan). In fact, a not-insignificant portion of the film is admirably restrained—the Driver and Irene share loving glances at each other like they’re in the middle of a fairy tale. But when the Driver and Irene’s feel-good vibes start to sour, beginning with her husband Standard’s (Oscar Isaac) release from prison and culminating in a pawn shop heist gone wrong, Drive explodes with the kind of ludicrous yet artful ultraviolence more aligned with its director’s sensibilities. Some folks probably tapped out when Christina Hendricks’s head exploded like a watermelon, or when Albert Brooks stabbed a dude in the eye with a fork, or when Gosling caved in a goon’s skull with his foot. (The sickos , meanwhile, were like “Yes … ha ha ha … yes !”)

It’s in these gnarly moments that Refn channels his natural impulse as a provocateur and fits Drive into the rest of his body of work. (To wit: Refn’s previous film, Valhalla Rising , features Mads Mikkelsen as a one-eyed Norse warrior who rips several people apart with his bare hands.) In the context of the movie, though, Drive ’s second half is a riveting descent into chaos: a starry, neon-lit L.A. curdling into a bloody (but still neon-lit) nightmare. The grimy transformation is even represented in a more literal sense, as the Driver puts on a prosthetic mask he steals from his day job as a stunt driver—a look that falls somewhere between Michael Myers and Karl Havoc —to drown Ron Perlman’s mob boss Nino in the Pacific Ocean.

But beneath the splatterings of gore and the film’s laconic pacing, Drive had enough potential as a crowd-pleaser that Refn was earmarked to make the jump to blockbusters, where, presumably in the mind of a studio executive, the auteur’s rougher edges could be sanded out. Indeed, Refn flirted with a move to the mainstream—see: The Equalizer reboot , the James Bond entry Spectre , and a Logan’s Run remake —but instead of going down that route, he doubled down on the controversial, gross-out moments that turned most moviegoers and even some critics off of his work. The result: Only God Forgives , which was booed at Cannes ; The Neon Demon , which was booed and received a 17-minute standing ovation at Cannes and reportedly caused two fights to break out ; and Too Old to Die Young , a TV series so uncompromisingly weird that its closest analogue is probably Twin Peaks: The Return .

But while Refn going mainstream is a fascinating what-if—is there a world in which Spectre is actually good?!—it never seemed like a good fit. After all, if Drive is Refn at his most accessible, then he’s probably better left operating on the fringes. Refn might never return to the near-universal critical acclaim he earned with Drive , but he still has his share of ardent admirers, and 10 years on, the film has aged gracefully. The ’80s-inspired soundtrack, which feels like a gateway drug to getting really into synthwave, is receiving a vinyl reissue next month; and you bet your ass faithful (and somewhat pricey) re-creations of the Driver’s white scorpion jacket can be found on Etsy. It’s a fitting legacy for Drive , which resonates for its iconography and overall cool-guy vibe more than any particular moment in the film’s lean narrative.

If that seems like a backhanded compliment, it’s not meant to be: Refn always has been a purveyor of beautiful imagery rather than, say, of memorable dialogue. (Not only does the Driver never get a name, but he barely speaks, so it’s a good thing he looks like Ryan Gosling.) If anything, it’s a testament to Refn’s visual mastery and aesthetic choices that, a decade on, Drive has such staying power. At a moment when action movies like Fast Five were upping the ante, Drive proved that, even if there wasn’t much rattling under the hood, there was still plenty to admire about an old-school neo-noir made with an abundance of style and a protagonist adhering to a simple ethos: “I drive.”

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Bakari Sellers on ‘The Moment: Thoughts on the Race Reckoning That Wasn’t and How We All Can Move Forward Now’

Larry is joined by attorney, political commentator, and host of ‘The Bakari Sellers Podcast’, Bakari Sellers, to discuss his new book ‘The Moment: Thoughts on the Race Reckoning That Wasn’t and How We All Can Move Forward Now’

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Drive (United States, 2011)

Perhaps Drive is an action movie for those who don't ordinarily like action movies. It's also an action movie for those who crave them like a drug. Employing unusual camera angles and a unique sense of style, director Nicolas Winding Refn takes us on a journey that gets us to feel something for the characters while still receiving an adrenaline rush when the speedometer races into the red zone. The car chases in this movie are exciting, but the best thing about Drive is that you don't know what's going to happen. There's a sense that the lead character could end up six feet under, and that adds an element of urgency to this movie that most in the genre are missing.

Ryan Gosling is perhaps an unlikely candidate for an action movie star, not only because he's a good actor (not necessarily a desirable quality for this sort of role) but because his skills are best utilized in dramas and low-key comedies. As it turns out, however, he's a good fit for Drive , in which his inscrutable character, credited only as "Driver," reveals little background and almost never engages in small talk. Is he autistic or merely an introvert? The movie doesn't much care. Often, dialogue is used to build a character, but Driver speaks so infrequently that it falls upon Gosling's mannerisms and facial expressions to develop someone better realized than a cartoonish stick figure. His success elevates Drive . We become invested not only in the man's life but in the chaste, innocent relationship that develops between Driver and his neighbor, Irene, who is played with a Cathy Rigby/girl-next-door sweetness by Carey Mulligan.

The movie opens with an explosive, pulse pounding prologue set to a throbbing score by composer Cliff Martinez. Driver does all sorts of jobs - works at a garage, races, drives movie stunt cars, and provides "transportation" for criminals. Drive opens with a getaway, and shows the meticulous planning that goes into one such operation. It includes a stopwatch, a police band radio, and some badass driving. The eight minute sequence could stand on its own as a short. It's the best part of a movie that is otherwise still very good.

Driver lives in the moment. He's not afraid of dying, perhaps because he never really lives. He falls in love with his neighbor, but she's married to a guy in prison and he's coming home soon. But "soon" is not today, so Driver finds momentary happiness in becoming a surrogate husband and father for a few days. Meanwhile, his friend and boss, Shannon (Bryan Cranston), provides him with getaway vehicles and puts together a deal that will allow him to drive a souped-up car in races. Unfortunately, to get the money for the car, he has to turn to a couple of mob thugs - the refined Bernie (Albert Brooks) and the less-refined Nino (Ron Perlman). You know things aren't going to go well with these two involved.

Perhaps because we're so used to seeing Brooks as a sadsack funny guy, we're more sympathetic to his character than we might be if Bernie was played by a more typical wise guy figure. It's effective casting because Brooks is believable. Ron Perlman enjoys chewing a little on his lines; Nino is from the Joe Pesci school of thugs - he shouts a lot and thinks violence isn't just the best way to solve problems; it's the only way. One senses that Bernie has spent half his life cleaning up Nino's messes, as a darkly comedic moment hints.

Taciturn action heroes are nothing new. Arnold Schwarzenegger strode through many films without cracking a smile. The difference here is that Gosling is not muscle-bound and his silences say more than many character's dialogues. You can see his mind working as he chews on a toothpick and the half-smirk speaks volumes. He doesn't carry a gun but is capable of a shocking degree of violence. In fact, the movie includes scenes worthy of Tarantino in terms of what they show and imply.

Refn, who strode to international recognition with Bronson , which featured a stunning performance by Tom Hardy, brings a European sense of style to Drive . From the beginning, it's clear this is not a standard-order action film. It takes its characters as seriously as its chases, shootouts, and fights. Neither aspect is short-changed, and the music and cinematography are used to establish and sustain tone. This is a moody film, with moments of understated, dark humor and bleakness. Most importantly, it shows that movies can generate a testosterone-and-adrenaline cocktail without requiring viewers to undergo a frontal lobotomy to appreciate the result.

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Seinfeld’s upcoming Netflix movie about Pop-Tarts to be featured in IndyCar race at Long Beach

FILE - Jerry Seinfeld is shown before the men’s singles final of the U.S. Open tennis championships between Casper Ruud, of Norway, and Carlos Alcaraz, of Spain, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022, in New York. Seinfeld’s upcoming Netflix comedy will be featured during this weekend’s IndyCar race at Long Beach as rookie Linus Lundqvist will drive a car painted to look like a Pop-Tart in recognition of the movie “Unfrosted.”(AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

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Jerry Seinfeld’s upcoming Netflix comedy will be featured during this weekend’s IndyCar race at Long Beach as rookie Linus Lundqvist will drive a car painted to look like a Pop-Tart in recognition of the movie “Unfrosted.”

Chip Ganassi Racing’s No. 8 will be painted in the texture of an unfrosted Pop-Tart along with images of Seinfeld and some of the movie cast members. The partnership, which is in collaboration with Ganassi sponsor American Legion, is promoting the May 3 film release.

The movie marks the directorial debut for the comedian.

Seinfeld claimed all the way back in 2018 that he had been “thinking about an invention of the Pop-Tart movie. Imagine the drunk on sugar-power Kellogg’s cereal culture of the mid-60s in Battle Creek, (Michigan) That’s a vibe I could work with.”

The movie, co-written by Seinfeld, stars Seinfeld along with Jim Gaffigan, Melissa McCarthy, Amy Schumer, Hugh Grant, James Marsden, Bill Burr, Fred Armisen, Dan Levy and others. “Unfrosted” tells the tale of 1963 Michigan, the year before Pop-Tarts hit grocery store shelves.

“Making a movie about Pop-Tarts has led to so many wonderful, unexpected surprises, and as a car guy, I honestly cannot believe our film’s logo will be on an IndyCar entry this weekend,” Seinfeld said. “I am grateful to Chip Ganassi Racing for making this happen, and honored to be affiliated with The American Legion and the work they do to support American Veterans.”

FILE - Kyle Larson sits on the car that he will drive in the IndyCar Indianapolis 500 after is was unveiled at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Sunday, Aug. 13, 2023. Larson next month will become the fifth driver in history to attempt to complete “The Double” and run 1,100 miles in one day at both the Indianapolis 500 in an Indy car and the Coca-Cola 600, NASCAR's longest race of the year. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)

The American Legion signed off on the promotion as part of its “Be the One” mission that aims to save the lives of veterans by raising awareness, destigmatizing mental-health treatment and educating veterans, service members and their loved ones about what to do when a person appears at risk of suicide. Comedy is often used as a way to alleviate the symptoms that can lead to thoughts of suicide.

“The ability for the American Legion to partner with Jerry Seinfeld, ‘Unfrosted’ and Netflix is an incredible opportunity to expose our organization and the work we do for veterans to an entirely new audience within the entertainment community — and — the general public that are fans of Jerry Seinfeld and his comedy,” said Dean Kessel, chief marketing officer of The American Legion.

“We know that humor can be therapeutic for those battling mental health issues. Partnering with the ‘Unfrosted’ project ties nicely into our ‘Be The One’ platform and our efforts to destigmatize veterans who are seeking help and our prevention of veteran suicide.”

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

Evil Does Not Exist is an eerie, modern-day fable by Oscar-winning director Ryusuke Hamaguchi

A man in black and a girl in a beanie and blue coat stand in a wheat field, the wheat standing tall above the man.

Eerie and entrancing in equal measure, this contemporary sylvan fable from Ryusuke Hamaguchi is one of the most deceptively beautiful movies of the year so far.

Its glacial, near-wordless opening act documents the routines of Takumi (Hitoshi Omika), a widower keenly attuned to a lifestyle of quiet subsistence. In the icy mountains surrounding Mizubiki (a fictional Japanese village that's driving distance from Tokyo), Takumi spends his days chopping wood for his hearth and gathering crystalline spring water for the local udon shop.

Hamaguchi's depiction of this picture-book idyll gently unravels: first, with the distant gunshots of unseen deer hunters; second, with the realisation that Takumi's forgotten to pick up his daughter Hana (Ryo Nishikawa) from school again.

The film's story soon comes into focus with the announcement of a more pressing existential threat: the creation of a glamping site in Mizubiki for nearby city-slickers.

A girl piggybacks on a man's shoutlders as they walk through a winter forest, small amounts of snow in pockets between green.

While the set-up suggests a familiar David-versus-Goliath battle across city lines and class divisions, the resulting social drama fractures into a series of unexpected, increasingly precarious turns – all culminating in a disquieting finale that evades straightforward interpretation.

At the centre of Evil Does Not Exist is an extended community meeting between the village's inhabitants and two representatives of the proposed development, Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani; Happy Hour) and Takahashi (Ryuji Kosaka). In a brief dig at showbiz, it's revealed that both are employees of a talent agency whose boss is looking to cash in on a pandemic subsidy; needless to say, they're in embarrassingly over their heads.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi's films share a keenly observational quality. His previous feature, Drive My Car (which took home best international feature film in 2022 and earned the very first best picture nomination for a Japanese film among its four Oscar nominations), follows another quietly grieving widower who directs a production of Uncle Vanya.

The auditions and rehearsals in the film are played out with a documentary-like attention to procedure that often recalled Louis Malle's recording of Vanya on 42nd Street.

The community meeting in Evil Does Not Exist has a similar effect in its unfussy filming, which employs longer takes and minimal camera movement — though the spectacle of Mizubiki's inhabitants excoriating the agency's ill-conceived plans crosses over into cringe comedy.

Beyond the inherent contradiction of conducting a serious dialogue about glamping – a deeply unattractive portmanteau with no Japanese equivalent – the session sees arguments erupt over fire risks, promises of boosting the local economy, and the amount of sewage that should be allowed to pollute a town's fresh water supply.

While there's more than a tinge of schadenfreude to the near-ritualistic humiliation of the representatives, it's undercut by a disheartening inevitability. Impassioned pleas are stonewalled by feeble pledges to take feedback on board; the conversation is all but a formality.

The film isn't unsympathetic to Mayuzumi and Takahashi, though, whose actions drive the film's second half. Hamaguchi understands that his audience's perspective (as well as his own) is better reflected by the hapless urbanite reps than a self-sufficient survivalist like Takumi.

Three people sit around a long tabe, with a colleague joining via Google Meet on the TV. One of them is turned away from the TV.

Evil Does Not Exist can be funny in the director's signature offhand manner – a quality evoked from the title itself – and its commentary is made stronger by his resistance to caricature. Even its most overt antagonist, a team project leader fluent in corporate speak who's glimpsed calling into a Google Hangout from his car, is presented with a scathing accuracy.

As the film progresses, concerns over the immediate threat posed by the agency are eclipsed by a troubled reflection on Mizubiki's delicate ecosystem. The camera lingers on the mountain's suffocating vastness, its rotting animal corpses and its piercing thorns, lacing the lush imagery with a subtle but unmistakeable menace; the methodical pacing gradually oozes with dread.

A young girl stares just beyond the camera, wearing a blue snow jacket and matching beanie. Her hands are in yellow gloves.

Evil Does Not Exist was initially conceived as a visual accompaniment to a live performance by musician Eiko Ishibashi so, unsurprisingly, her music is intrinsic to the film's uniquely haunting tone. Initially recalling the sonorous string compositions of Max Richter, the score descends into jarring dissonance and incorporates sparse electronic sounds. Just as important to the score is the film's sudden, razor-sharp cuts, which mercilessly disrupt its lull.

At times, the film recalls The Curse, Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie's recent Paramount+ miniseries. Despite being completely different in tone, both narratives of class warfare, guilt and a perversion of the natural world are approached with a refreshing strangeness. Such themes have become rocket fuel for the recent cultural landscape, yet rarely is this material allowed to feel genuinely, menacingly abstract.

It's hard to imagine that Evil Does Not Exist will attain the status of Hamaguchi's previous Oscar darling film – which is precisely what makes the film so exciting. It's a daring creative pivot that spells out a rich future for the director.

But for all its surprises and enigmas, it's not an inaccessible film. Audiences who let themselves submit to its irresistible, hypnotic rhythms will be rewarded by a film that inspires genuine contemplation, however troubling its conclusions may be.

Evil Does Not Exist is in cinemas now.

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COMMENTS

Drive movie review & film summary (2011)
Roger Ebert praises the style and substance of "Drive", a thriller starring Ryan Gosling as a mysterious getaway driver. He contrasts the Driver's existential cool with the rich characters and emotions of his neighbors and associates, and compares the film to "Bullitt".
Drive
Apr 20, 2023. Rated: 4/4 • Mar 8, 2023. Rated: 7/10 • Oct 4, 2022. Driver is a skilled Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver for criminals. Though he projects an icy exterior ...
'Drive,' With Ryan Gosling
Drive. Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Crime, Drama. R. 1h 40m. By A. O. SCOTT. Sept. 15, 2011. A long time ago, as a young filmmaker besotted with the hard-boiled pleasures of classic Hollywood ...
Drive (2011)
Drive is directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and adapted to screenplay by Hossein Amini from the novel of the same name written by James Sallis. It stars Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, Oscar Isaac, Christina Hendricks and Ron Perlman.
Drive
Drive is a movie with power but is still directionless; the acceleration is great, but the steering needs looking at. Read Peter Bradshaw's blog about this review and some of the comments it provoked.
Drive
Drive Reviews. Drive is basically the coolest movie ever. Its dreamlike, electronic soundtrack -- perfect for travel at night -- layers meaningful messages into a violent fairy tale about an ...
Drive
Drive - review. Ryan Gosling shines as the man behind the wheel in Nicolas Winding Refn's gripping and lyrical take on Hollywood noir. Philip French. Sat 24 Sep 2011 19.05 EDT. T hirty years ago ...
Drive
Drive is the story of a Hollywood stunt driver by day, a loner by nature, who moonlights as a top-notch getaway driver-for-hire in the criminal underworld. He finds himself a target for some of LA's most dangerous men after agreeing to aid the husband of his beautiful neighbor, Irene. When the job goes dangerously awry, the only way he can keep Irene and her son alive is to do what he does ...
Drive (2011)
Drive: Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. With Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks. A mysterious Hollywood action film stuntman gets in trouble with gangsters when he tries to help his neighbor's husband rob a pawn shop while serving as his getaway driver.
Drive Review: Ryan Gosling Film Delivers Fresh Guilty ...
Film Review: 'Drive,' Starring Ryan Gosling, Delivers Fresh Guilty-Pleasure Thrills ... Like Quentin Tarantino, Refn is an exploitation-movie junkie, so his cinematic references mirror '70s ...
Movie Review
Drive. Director: Nicolas Winding Refn. Genre: Crime, Action, Drama. Running Time: 100 minutes. Rated R for disturbing content and some language. But Driver down deep is one of God's Loneliest Men ...
DRIVE Movie Review
Drive movie review. Matt reviews Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive starring Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman, and Albert Brooks.
Movie review: 'Drive'
Movie review: 'Drive'. "Drive" is a Los Angeles neo-noir, a neon-lit crime story made with lots of visual style. It's a film in love with both traditional noir mythology and ultra-modern ...
Drive
Drive was once intended as a fast-and-furious blockbuster for Hugh Jackman. Then Gosling stepped in and met Refn. As the actor drove the director home, the radio blasted REO Speedwagon, and Refn ...
Drive Movie Review
Positive Messages. "The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry". Positive Role Models. The main character leads a life of crime, and his. Violence & Scariness. This movie starts off slowly and quietly, but soon. Sex, Romance & Nudity. Two or three topless women are on view for a long. Language.
'Drive': Movie Review (2011)
'Drive': Cannes 2011 Review. The arty Danish fast-cars-and-crime thriller, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, should be promotable to good box office results from both discerning and popcorn ...
'Drive' Review
Refn creates a movie experience like none other - though that may be a drawback for some viewers. Drive is an artist's rendition of a neo-noir flick, offering us moments of high-class visual iconography without sacrificing the dark, gritty, working-class edge that is the defining quality of Film Noir.The director also evidences a smart capability for action: Drive has three major chase ...
‎Drive (2011) directed by Nicolas Winding Refn • Reviews, film + cast
Driver is a skilled Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver for criminals. Though he projects an icy exterior, lately he's been warming up to a pretty neighbor named Irene and her young son, Benicio. When Irene's husband gets out of jail, he enlists Driver's help in a million-dollar heist. The job goes horribly wrong, and Driver must risk his life to protect Irene and Benicio ...
"Drive" (2011) Movie Review
Silence plays a major role in this film. Gosling has a grand total of maybe 15 minutes of speaking. He said in an interview that he enjoyed being able to play a role where it was up to the audience to make assessments and interpret motive and thought. "Drive" (2011) To that end, the silence was very well used.
Drive
Movie Review. Driver drives. Most mornings he drives to work—to a garage where he's a mechanic. Some days he drives onto movie sets, working as a stunt man. And he'll be driving a stock car on the weekends if he tunes his carburetor just right. Oh, and he also drives the getaway car for thieves who need a little extra horsepower.
Ten Years Later, 'Drive' Still Goes
Ten Years Later, 'Drive' Still Goes. In 2011, Nicolas Winding Refn broke into the mainstream with the help of a laconic Ryan Gosling, a synth-heavy soundtrack, and a hyperviolence that divided ...
Drive (2011 film)
Drive is a 2011 American action drama film directed by Nicolas Winding Refn.The screenplay, written by Hossein Amini, is based on James Sallis's 2005 novel of the same name.The film stars Ryan Gosling as an unnamed Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver. He quickly grows fond of his neighbor, Irene (Carey Mulligan), and her young son, Benicio.
Drive
Drive (United States, 2011) September 13, 2011. A movie review by James Berardinelli. Perhaps Drive is an action movie for those who don't ordinarily like action movies. It's also an action movie for those who crave them like a drug. Employing unusual camera angles and a unique sense of style, director Nicolas Winding Refn takes us on a journey ...
Seinfeld's upcoming Netflix movie about Pop-Tarts to be featured in
"The ability for the American Legion to partner with Jerry Seinfeld, 'Unfrosted' and Netflix is an incredible opportunity to expose our organization and the work we do for veterans to an entirely new audience within the entertainment community — and — the general public that are fans of Jerry Seinfeld and his comedy," said Dean Kessel, chief marketing officer of The American Legion.
This Japanese film is 'one of the most deceptively beautiful movies of
What: A modern-day fable about the development of a glamping site in a rural Japanese village. Starring: Hitoshi Omika, Ryo Nishikawa, Ayaka Shibutani, Ryuji Kosaka. When: In cinemas now. Likely ...