Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Entertainment
  3. Reviews

Drive Review

Scott Younker
By

Drive review with Ryan Gosling
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Every time I sit down and think about writing a Drive review, all I see are the cringe-worthy moments, and those moments stand out. But I liked Drive, even if I still have a hard time understanding why.

Drive will get people in the seats because of Ryan Gosling, but it won’t be for everyone. It’s a slow-burn movie that’s spliced with scenes of jarring violence that will turn off some. Plus, Ryan Gosling alone won’t be enough for others to like this film, as his performance is unnervingly calm throughout. Until the violent moments, that is.

A lot of critics love director Nicolas Winding Refn (Bronson, Valhalla Rising). He does cinematically interesting things, and all of his films are long and slow in their narrative, with interludes of gory violence that are supposed to break up the monotony. You’ll see a lot of moments where characters stare off into space at nothing with what looks like deep contemplation on their faces. Sometimes it will be a warranted introspection, but usually not.

Related

Refn’s critical acclaim will generate a lot of very positive reviews of Drive, and the film is already earning rave reviews from the festival circuit. There might not be much of a mainstream audience for this movie, but there will be a strong audience for it.

On the road again…

Drive is based off a book of the same name by James Sallis, and if you’re interested in trivia, you might like knowing that Drive is Refn’s first movie based off of a novel, and with a script that wasn’t written by him.

drive1
Image used with permission by copyright holder

It follows Ryan Gosling as the aptly named Driver, a Hollywood stunt-driver and mechanic working for Shannon (Bryan Cranston), the a middle man who gets him jobs as a wheelman for criminals. You might hear some comparisons between Gosling’s Driver and Jason Statham’s Frank Martin from The Transporter series, and while the plots are very loosely similar and the characters both have “rules,” these movies are not alike. Don’t listen to someone who compares this film to The Transporter. Ever.

After one of his jobs, Driver discovers that he has a new neighbor in his apartment building, Irene (Carey Mulligan), who has just moved in with her son Benicio. Gosling starts a relationship with her before finding out that she has a husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac), who is in prison. When Standard gets out, he is threatened by men who he owes protection money to, stemming from his time in jail. Driver agrees to help him to keep Irene and Benicio safe.
Drive review starring Ryan Gosling

The crime goes badly, and Driver has a hit put out on him by Nino — played by a greasy Ron Perlman — who is partners with smooth crime boss Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks). In response, Driver goes on a series of revenge hits of his own — revenge hits that are disgustingly violent. Trust me, there’s a moment in an elevator and another in an Italian restaurant run by Perlman that will make you cringe.

Supporting roles make the movie

Ostensibly, this film is about Gosling’s Driver and his relationship with Irene. The problem with this is that Gosling is infuriatingly calm. He rarely shows emotion and has a lot of scenes where he just seems to be staring off into space. It bothered me, but I know that it won’t annoy everyone. His performance does add contrast when he starts his revenge journey.

Irene mostly disappears in the third act, which almost makes the whole point of Driver killing people a waste of time and human lives. Still, her presence is barely felt in the first two acts, and she is mostly a blank to begin with. Refn is a decent director of men, but the women in his roles (there aren’t any really in Valhalla Rising and only a few in Bronson) seem to drift in and out his movies as excuses for plot movement, not roles with depth or humanity.

What really makes this movie are the supporting characters. Bryan Cranston is shady as the mechanic and fringe criminal who gives Driver a job, and if you like him in Breaking Bad (and apparently, you did) you’ll see hints of that here. Perlman is Ron Perlman. What more can you ask of an actor that portrays bad guys with such a villainous quality? He’s always good, and that’s no different here.

Albert Brooks is the star, though. He really chews into the role of Bernie Rose. Even when he speaks in a friendly, genteel manner, there is a layer of menace under his voice. Despite that, you think he’s kind of the hands-off mob boss who doesn’t get his hands dirty. In the third act, he does get down in the muck, and it’s glorious and terrifying to witness. I would honestly recommend this movie on Brooks’ performance alone.

Conclusion

Drive moves between long calms and short, extreme moments of violence that are either gritty or very artistic. It is a Nicolas Wending Refn movie in tone and view. The problem is that the violence and the supporting characters overshadow the main relationship between Irene and Driver. I’ve harped on it this whole review, but I firmly believe that the violence and the way it’s employed in this movie will push some audiences away. This doesn’t mean that there won’t be people who don’t mind the brutality, but it will be hard for some to swallow.

I liked Drive, but it’s hard to really find a particular reason why. The more I think about it, the more I’m reminded that Albert Brooks is the best part of this movie. It’s too bad he’s not the focus of the whole film. If you are on the fence and looking for a reason to check out Drive, see it for Brooks’ performance. It is some rich acting from the normally comedic actor.

[Drive is rated R, with a running time of 100 minutes]

Editors' Recommendations

Scott Younker
Scott Younker
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Not Okay review: a social media satire that pulls its punches
Danni Sanders takes a selfie while wearing a red beret in Not Okay.

Not Okay tells you exactly what kind of a film it is before it even begins. The new film from writer-director Quinn Shephard, which charts one vapid influencer's rise to fame and subsequent social media cancellation, opens with an explicit warning that it contains, among other things, “an unlikable female protagonist.” It’s a message that comes across not only as a winking nod to the ways in which a term such as “likable” has been weaponized against women over the years but also a vow that Not Okay isn't going to play it safe.

That's a promise that Shephard doesn’t fully follow through on. The film’s “unlikable” protagonist, Danni Sanders (Zoey Deutch), is narcissistic and coldly opportunistic in all the ways that one expects an ambitious social media influencer to be, and Shephard spends much of Not Okay’s first act establishing Danni’s obsessive desire to be noticed. When her boss (played by Negin Farsad), an editor at a culture website named “Depravity,” scolds Danni for writing in one piece that she believes she lost out on an integral generational bonding moment by missing 9/11, Not Okay makes it explicitly clear what kind of protagonist we’re dealing with.
An unlikable female protagonist who is too likable
But before Not Okay gets to that, it follows up its attention-grabbing opening message with a montage that throws viewers right into the deep end of the viral hate campaign that eventually turns Danni’s life upside down. The montage follows Danni as she sobs while obsessively consuming all the various tweets, articles, and YouTube videos that have been made by those who are so anxious to paint her as the world's worst person. Whether it’s meant to or not, the sequence creates an immediate empathy for Danni and, even more importantly, clues you into the loneliness that is at the heart of all of her attempts to gain viral fame.

Read more
The Gray Man review: Ryan Gosling battles Chris Evans in a rote action movie
Ryan Gosling aims a big gun in the Netflix action movie The Gray Man.

If you’ve ever plugged the word “Bourne” into the Netflix search bar, watched at least two minutes of Extraction, or Googled “Avengers: Endgame streaming,” The Gray Man owes you a special-thanks credit. Netflix’s charmless new action movie is a veritable tag cloud of keywords adapted into a lump of generic subscriber bait. Every one of its creative decisions, from the casting to the rat-a-tat snark of the dialogue to the stock on-the-run premise, might have been made by someone in the metrics department. The only way The Gray Man could feel more algorithmic is if it starred Ryan Reynolds, the current king of the content farm.

In fact, the title role is occupied by a different handsome, blonde Ryan in his early 40s. That would be Ryan Gosling, who's usually more discerning about which projects to prune from the offer stack. Codenamed Sierra Six, perhaps in the hope that audiences might mistake this for a spinoff of Netflix’s 6 Underground, Court Gentry (Gosling) is a convict who agrees to become a weapon of the state in exchange for a commuted sentence. “You’d be part of an elite unit,” sweet talks his CIA recruiter (Billy Bob Thornton), banking on Suicide Squad having never made the cut for cell-block movie night.

Read more
The Princess review: Hulu’s fairytale fight film packs a punch
Joey King and Veronica Ngo stand back to back with swords in a scene from The Princess.

Mashing up genres can be hit-or-miss in Hollywood. When it works out, the film can be a fascinating blend of familiar tropes and subversive spins on the expected. When it doesn't, it can be a frustrating jumble of elements that don't play well together.

Fortunately, Hulu's The Princess falls into the former category, delivering a fast-paced action film filtered through a familiar fairytale premise, peppered with enough clever twists to provide plenty of surprises.

Read more