The Sauced Bulletin

I always find it interesting to be in the audience for a film that is wildly different from what people expect it to be.  The trailers for Drive, while not completely misleading (like the ones for Catfish were), would lead you to believe that this is a pretty straightforward action film about car chases and a heist gone wrong.  The thing is, it actually IS those things, but the way Drive delivers its linear story of badassery and redemption is unlike anything else released this year in commercial American cinema.  The pacing is slow, deliberate, even…..dare I say it….European.  Needless to say the people in my theater expecting to see Ryan Gosling’s take on The Transporter were very uncomfortable. But if you go in looking for a piece of art with subtle performances, beautiful imagery and some fucking VIOLENCE, then you’re in luck.  Because Drive was great.

Drive tells the story of a driver without a name.  Ryan Gosling’s character is defined by what he does:  he DRIVES.  Stuntman by day, getaway driver by night, Gosling exudes cool in a role that could have easily come off as boring.  He doesn’t talk much, not even to love-interest Carey Mulligan (always adorable), but Gosling gives an incredibly subtle performance that provides “Driver” with great emotional depth.  He was so cool that he had me Googling prices for silk scorpion-embroidered racing jackets the minute I got home.  Oh, but I almost forgot to mention:  the “Driver” is also a complete fucking LUNATIC.  Which brings me to Drive’s only real problem.

Now, I have no problem with violence.  I don’t believe it should be censored or shied away from in any way, especially in gritty crime movies.  But the level of gore and in your face violence in Drive was….a bit much.  Some people laughed when a character had their head BLOWN THE FUCK OFF with a shotgun blast, while others, like me, went kind of like “Eeew, oh my god!”  There’s a part where Ryan Gosling stomps a dude’s head in (IN!) while riding an elevator.  In a movie so slick and cool, I just found the violence distracting.  Sometimes over the top blood and gore works to serve a point, but this didn’t really seem to have one.  The blood was just there….everywhere….in the movie’s second half.  I get that Gosling’s character is supposed to have a kind of morally questionable violent streak and quick temper, but I think that could have been conveyed in a way that worked better with the overall style.

And by “overall style” I mean the AWESOMENESS that was the look/feel/sound of this movie.  The camerawork/lighting are gorgeous, especially as Gosling drives around LA at night.  The car chases, especially in the opening, are tense and executed to white knuckle perfection.  And the MUSIC!  The music consists primarily of bouncy 80s-style synth-pop songs that, while totally at odds with the subject matter, work perfectly and help to define the world in which all this crazy shit takes place.  The soundtrack is amazing.  I even enjoyed the slow, awkward pacing of the early conversations between Gosling and Mulligan (which is what most of the audience responded to with nervous laughter).  It was almost refreshing to see people interact in a different way than whip-smart Hollywood dialogue, or dumbed down romantic comedy dialogue, produces.  It sort of brings the tension into every scene (like the first time Gosling meets Mulligan’s HUSBAND “Standard.”  Great name.  Super tense).  The first half’s pacing also serves as a great build-up to the second half’s batshit craziness.

So I had a great time at Drive.  While not necessarily the “best” film of the year so far, it is sure as shit the coolest.  Where else can you see Ryan Gosling pry open a dude’s mouth with a hammer and force him to swallow a bullet in front of a bunch of strippers?  The answer is nowhere else.  I’d like to shake director Nicolas Winding Refn’s hand for bringing such a singular neo-noir experience to the screen, and for bringing Ryan Gosling about as far away from The Notebook as he’s ever been.  Now stop reading and GO SEE IT!