Ryan Gosling, arguably one of the sexiest men in Hollywood right now (not gay, I swear) stars as driver. That's right, he isn't listed as having a name. Nor does anyone ask. Anyways Driver, is a hollywood stunt driver. We know this because he does exactly ONE stunt in about a 5 minute scene. The only point being it shows that he takes risks and has access to face masks. Driver is also a mechanic at a friend's shop. Those are his day jobs. At night, Driver likes to drive criminals away from their heists and crimes and whatever else criminals do at night.
At some point Driver meets his neighbor who he likes to stare at every time she talks to him. Her name is Irene (Carey Mulligan) and she has a cute little mexican son and a husband who is currently in jail. Obviously she falls in love with Driver even though his vocabulary consists of "thanks" and "no". But then her husband gets out of jail and Irene is all confused. Driver just goes with the flow because he's a driver. But some mob bosses want her husband to get back in the game so Driver helps out. It gets messed up and I don't really care anymore. I'll just sum up the last 20 minutes of the movie. Driver has to kill all these mob guys before they kill Irene and her kid.
There are two movies here. The first movie is about a driver. He drives criminals around but a job gets messed up and he has to kill a lot of people in the most violent ways possible in order to save his girlfriend. I can buy that. The second movie is a romance in which a mother with an estranged husband falls in love with her reclusive but sexy neighbor. I can buy that as well. But both in the same movie? Not a chance.
There is actually a lawsuit about how misleading the Drive trailer is. What they advertised was fast and the furious six. What they got was this arthouse movie that out of nowhere took a turn for Saw levels of gore in the end. Lately, I've been describing it to people as Kill Bill. If Kill Bill had no talking, everyone staring at each other for 2 hours and a body count of about 6. A.K.A. boring. Even when the action started it was only briefly satisfying and the two guys you wanted to see killed, get killed offscreen. What a freaking rip-off. I spent 10.50 on this damn movie and I have never been closer to walking right out of the theater.
Drive, I see your point stylistically. You called with visual stimulation and atmosphere. I raise you a plot, non-wooden characters, decent action, entertainment value and a nonmisleading trailer. Oh, you can't counter? Than I get all the chips baby.
If you're going to have a movie called Drive, have some freaking driving. It started off strong but then there's nothing. Nothing decent anyways, even the getaway scene later on has driving that I could do. I don't want to watch a man drive around in his car for an hour contemplating life and obeying traffic laws, I want to watch him get away from the police guns blazing. The movie should be titled Stare because that's all that happens.
0 out of 4 stars
-Christopher O'Connell
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