Drive - Review

DRIVE

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

Produced by Michel Litvak, John Palermo, Marc Platt, Gigi Pritzker & Adam Siegel

Screenplay by Hossein Amini
(Based on the novel Drive by James Sallis)

Cinematography by Newton Thomas Sigel

Starring
Ryan Gosling
Carey Mulligan
Bryan Cranston
Christina Hendricks
Ron Perlman
Oscar Isaac
Albert Brooks

REVIEW
The film while it had its moments of brilliant scenes and an electrifying soundtrack was not good. It had good direction and cinematography, but so what. It was dull bordering on quietus.

Ryan Gosling gave a good performance, but in a movie that wasn’t what’s the point? The story was pretty much stuff we’ve seen before and none of it innovative. The movie went from moments of boredom to wild acts of violence, then boredom again.

Even though is had a great supporting cast, none of them were interesting either. I got this off of Facebook after a spirited online discussion about this film and I think it says it perfectly.

Raymond M.
Drive is a divisive movie. I know people who loved it and I know people who hated it. I know one guy who demanded his money back after seeing it.... I agree that Albert Brooks was mediocre to terrible and that some of the dialog was horrible, The movie excels in the style and world that it creates. Its a cool throwback to 70's and 80' action flicks with the silent anti-hero righting wrongs and protecting the innocent. Its also VERY well directed and slick and takes a basic story and makes it special. People who can appreciate that tend to love it. People who want more narrative meat on their movie's bones tend to not get what the fuss is about.

I have no more to add. Terrible movie.

COMMENTARY: I NEVER write reviews for films I don’t like. I’m a filmmaker not a critic. I don’t spend time writing a review for a film I didn’t like because no matter what I thought of the film, they at least got it done and they deserve a modicum of respect for that.

I’m writing THIS review because SO MANY people have remarked what a great film this was and how it was snubbed across the awards circuit and I’m like in order to be snubbed you have to be at first good. The TV spots and trailer looked boring to me and I had NO interest in seeing this, but after everyone kept talking about how great it was I had to check it out. My bad.

As you know I did not enjoy it, but after I got in a debate with my filmmaker friends online AND in person I said I’ll watch this again. I may be wrong, but I doubt it.

Before I wrap, a funny tweet about Drive

Lastly, I LIVE TWEETED the re-watch I dubbed #DriveOver and below are screencaps of my rewatch of Drive. Warning, I DID get raw with the explicit language so parental discretion advised.

You can also see the album directly right HERE