A Hollywood stunt performer who moonlights as a wheelman discovers that a contract has been put on him after a heist gone wrong.
An action crime movie that’s as cerebral and surreal as it is red-blooded. If director Refn and star Gosling accelerate into the mainstream with Drive, they’ll be doing it on their own terms, with style.
Drive is a top gear achievement.
Oh alright, it ain’t Shane. But it is about as much shamelessly disreputable, stylish, ultra-violent fun you’re going to have at the movies this year.
Drive pays homage to some great films, but substance never gets out of the garage.
By no means perfect, although it’s hard to process the flaws while your insides are singing and you can’t catch your breath.
Drive is a movie with power but is still directionless; the acceleration is great, but the steering needs looking at.
Not enough going on under the bonnets of these characters to justify the laboured, pretentious execution.
After Half Nelson and Blue Valentine, [Ryan Gosling] was ready for this kind of star-making role, and he duly goes and blows the doors off.
Drive, for all its aesthetic bells and whistles, its slo-mo raptures and hipster sound design, is really the same old same old.
It's pulp, of course, and increasingly violent with it.
If Grand Theft Auto was a movie, this would be it.
Classy cult thriller.
Hold on tight and prepare for the ride of your life.
It plays like a cheeky riff on Pauline Kael's disparaging Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang thesis mourning the way the most basic appeal of movies can be boiled down to sex and violence. With Drive, Refn proves that this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Indeed the basic appeal of movies – the stuff that's under the hood – can be a thing of beauty in itself.
Drive is an unflinchingly violent film, its action both intense and lyrical...but above all, this is Gosling's movie, confirming his place as a major, versatile presence in American cinema.
Drive is a terrific film for the first hour – and then, I confess, I turn off this particular freeway.
With Bronson, Refn created a film which soon became a British classic and with Drive he has (arguably) created one of the most sophisticated American pictures this year.
The only weak point is, alas, the plot. Repetitive and predictable, Drive lost its grip on me after the first couple of bloody, graphic killings. With a body count of ten, this is a film that will enchant cinematic violence lovers but will leave everybody else indifferent.
Another view on Drive
General release. Check local listings for show times.
Cameo, Edinburgh from Friday January 13, 2012, until Wednesday January 25, 2012. More info: http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/
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