388. Drive (2011)

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Albert Brooks

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn

Running Time: 100 mins

Drive is an American film about a mysterious man, working as a stuntman, a mechanic and a getaway driver, who finds himself in a great deal of trouble after he helps his neighbour, a woman single-handedly raising her child as her husband is in prison.

This film was unbelievably strange. Normally artsy films don’t really interest me very much, however in this case, it was very different. Rather than being pretentious and try to bring across thought-provoking topics, this film was very arty in the way it presented the psychological madness of the ‘protagonist’, a truly intriguing concept in my opinion.

The initial stages of the film were fascinating. Set in a calm atmosphere, with a cool, collected Driver right in the centre, everything seemed a little too serene. Due to this, I was constantly trying to second guess what was going to happen next, whether anything would erupt from this façade, making the 45 minute build-up stage very tense.

And then, it did erupt. The moment when some violence broke out of the calm world, it was just shocking to see, and really put me further towards the edge of my seat, affirming my presuppositions about the Driver. However, I wasn’t all too impressed with what followed. Of course, it maintained that bizarre artsy feel, however it was filled with such a large amount of gore it was unnecessary, and the story that it was initially based around seemed to lose weight towards the end.

Nonetheless, I’ll give this a 7.6, because although it was slightly disappointing in the end, I was hugely fascinated and drawn in by the overall concept of this strange film.