It's easy to see why a lot of critics (particularly the American ones) are a bit gaga for Nicolas Winding Refn's noir/western/gangster flick Drive. In today's Hollywood, so saturated with CGI heavy action films that might as well be cartoons, Drive is an anomaly; a star studded film concerned more with character and atmosphere than extravagance. The latter it does masterfully, creating a cool retro eighties vibe while still make it clear that the film is set in the present. As for the former, it does a decent job, better than most modern genre films, but no where near as good as it does with it's setting and atmosphere.That atmosphere is established immediately with a cold opening that clearly positions the film as coming from The Driver's (Ryan Gosling, who never gets a name) point of view. Like him, the film is cool, detached, and professional, with enough confidence for three leading characters. During this opening, we see The Driver (do I need to specify that he's a getaway driver?) pick up a couple of crooks who have just robbed a warehouse. As he takes them away from the heist he is simultaneously listening to a police scanner and a basketball game. He moves casually through the streets and we think that he has gotten away clean. Soon though we hear the scanner indicate that his car was spotted and police are on the look out for a Monte Carlo (the most popular car in California we're told in a brief flashback). He knows that he blends in and never breaks a sweat. Where you would most often expect, from a Hollywood film, some spectacular car chase where everyone's catching air and sparks are flying, you get instead a precisely edited scene where The Driver speeds only when absolutely necessary and we discover that he isn't just listening to the game because he's an avid fan and is just that cool but because he's been planning his disposal of the getaway car to coincide with the end of the game so he can make an easy escape by blending in with the crowd. It's a brilliantly executed sequence and it sets a high standard for the rest of the film. One that unfortunately, it falls just short of measuring up to.
It maintains the atmosphere, but the effect wears off. The characters simply aren't developed enough. There's been much talk about Albert Brooks and his turn as gangster Bernie Rose, and it is a good performances that Brooks eats up in his limited scenes (4, maybe 5). Everyone else is more or less just a face. Bryan Cranston plays Shannon, The Driver's mentor of sorts, and gets a fair amount of screen time. He doesn't really do anything though, outside of the requisite exposition that gives a little of the background between him and The Driver. Ron Pearlman, Oscar Isaac, Christina Hendricks (who doesn't have a line if I'm recalling correctly), and Kaden Leos round out the cast who seem to have been cast for their faces. Great faces all, but it would have been nice to have a little more character there as well. No, I didn't forget about Carey Mulligan. She plays Irene, The Driver's neighbor, and continues on her endless campaign to bore me to death. She is one of the dullest, most one dimensional actresses around and her success baffles me. But I digress. The two meet and he is enamored by her (and her young son, Benicio). A relationship seems like it might develop but then we, and The Driver, learn that her husband Standard (Isaacs) is about to be released from prison and come home. Here Refn again wisely goes against our expectations; instead of a big confrontation between the husband and The Driver, they end up forming a tentative friendship. Eventually, Standard's criminal past catches up to him and he is forced to do a job to try and relieve a debt that he incurred in prison. Because of his affection for Irene and Benicio, The Driver decides that he will help Standard with the job, unbeknownst to Irene.
This of course marks the beginning of the end, as these things never go well in movies of this type. A heist is planned, and is botched with Standard getting killed. As it unravels we learn that the only players involved are all the characters that we've been introduced to, with Pearlman's Nino at the top of the pyramid. It's the kind of situation generally reserved for stupid comedies or "Three's Company," where a simple conversation could probably fix everything in ten minutes. Alas, that doesn't happen. Instead we get a series of scenes with escalating violence with Nino trying to clean up the mess by sending a variety of goons to kill everyone off. It's pretty Standard stuff. Excuse me, standard stuff.
Through it all The Driver remains stoic, almost. There were three instances that I thought I saw Gosling letting The Drivers feelings show, and they're all telling. The first is actually a series of instances in itself; it's the interactions Gosling has with kid. They get along and The Driver smiles at him, something I don't think he did once to Irene. There is almost a hint of jealousy in The Driver's face when he looks at Benicio. A longing to return to a more innocent time. The Driver's next emotional outpouring comes during his escape from the botched hold-up. Once he realizes things are out of hand, he and Blanche (Hendricks) take off and are pursued by another car. What exactly this car was doing or who sent it, I didn't quite get. I know they weren't cops. It was a double cross of some kind I think but it's not really important. During this chase The Driver gives a couple of looks of frustration and anger at the rear view mirror. He seems genuinely pissed that someone is able to keep up with him. That's it. Outpouring over. The final moment, and the most telling, comes when he stomps a man's head to pulp in an elevator. Refn shoots The Driver from below, focuses on his face as he continues to stomp on his assailant long after he's dead. In his face we see not just the psychopathic rage that he's manage to hide (even when committing other acts of brutality) but also a bit of glee buried in there as well. Irene recognizes it immediately and steps away.
The rest of the film continues to follow The Driver as he eliminates the rest of the remaining players. It's all fairly conventional despite the occasions mentioned (and perhaps a few others) where Refn deviates from our expectations. That's all fine. I enjoy genre filmmaking and have embraced the amoral characters at the center of noirs, westerns, and gangster films. So it was disheartening to see (technically hear), after so much that was good about the film, College's song "A Real Hero," used to close the film. Refn gives us a close up of The Driver and we hear the refrain from the song "...real human being, and a real hero..." Now, I've been done with irony for sometime now but if ever there was a moment when it was need, it's this one. Instead, Refn seems deadly serious; he really wants us to consider this guy some kind of hero. Why, because he stood up for the woman? Because he left the money on the ground after his final murder? If he had just driven away, covered in blood, without the awful song force feeding us, the film would have been an undeniable success. Instead, it's a well made, well acted, enjoyable ride, with a completely disingenuous ending that spits in the face of its audience. Refn has enormous potential and this is an improvement over the misstep that was Valhalla Rising (2009). I hope he can find the edge that he had in his best film to date, Bronson (2008), and doesn't become sanitized by the Hollywood machine.
