Drive

Ryan Gosling stars as a mysterious stunt driver who makes extra money at night as a getaway specialist. Give him 5 minutes, and he will make sure you don't get caught by the cops while hightailing it away from the crime scene. After that, he doesn't know your name, doesn't want to see you and doesn't care what happens. However, his life is about to get more complicated that he ever wanted.

Suddenly, our driver has feelings for the next door neighbor, Irene (Carey Mulligan). His business partner, Shannon (Bryan Cranston), wants to make a go of it as a driving team in legitimate races, and the job he never should have taken puts the driver in harm's way in a predicament he never could have imagined.

How will he get out of this jam?

Can he?

Drive feels like some 1980's movie you'd find on cable TV after midnight, but director Nicholas Winding Refn knows how to class it up. The film has all of the elements that make it a seedy B-movie with the involvement of low level criminals, Mob associated king pins, and the dirty underbelly of Los Angeles you don't see driving down Wilshire Boulevard. However, Refn creates the perfect tone to draw the audience into this world, and lets his amazing cast do the rest for us.

Refn makes Drive a seductive, moody movie. Everyone sparsely speaks in a certain dull pattern with a slight monotone that hides the danger or the real emotion behind the words as if they can't confront the reality of what happens around them or in their lives. It's like a modern film noir with an eeriness that makes the explosions of violence and action all the more powerful.

Then, Gosling proves he is running as far away from The Notebook and The All New Mickey Mouse Club as a man can by continuing to be one of the best actors you have ever seen. He has a screen presence defined by an intensity that doesn't require yelling, screaming and facial contortions. He's just cooler and tougher than anyone else on the screen without a need to prove it.

While Albert Brooks is getting the early Oscar talk for his supporting role, I found Cranston amazing as the weak, desperate mechanic with a destiny that no one would ask for. Like a pathetic version of Ralph Cramden, Shannon always thinks he has the great idea that will make him rich, but no ability to make it happen. I love how he physically makes the character weak with the limp we find out he earned from some trouble he got himself into a few years back, but he matches it up with how he makes Shannon weak of spirit as well.

Drive can be too slow at times, and I would like more dialogue, but it's a good movie for those who want to walk on the dirty side.

Drive is rated R for strong brutal bloody violence, language and some nudity.