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The Driver drives for hire. He has no other name, and no other life. When we first see him, he's the wheelman for a getaway car, who runs from police pursuit not only by using sheer speed and muscle, but by coolly exploiting the street terrain and outsmarting his pursuers. By day, he is a stunt driver for action movies. The two jobs represent no conflict for him: He drives.

As played by Ryan Gosling , he is in the tradition of two iconic heroes of the 1960s: Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name and Alain Delon in " Le Samourai ." He has no family, no history and seemingly few emotions. Whatever happened to him drove any personality deep beneath the surface. He is an existential hero, I suppose, defined entirely by his behavior.

That would qualify him as the hero of a mindless action picture, all CGI and crashes and mayhem. "Drive" is more of an elegant exercise in style, and its emotions may be hidden but they run deep. Sometimes a movie will make a greater impact by not trying too hard. The enigma of the driver is surrounded by a rich gallery of supporting actors who are clear about their hopes and fears, and who have either reached an accommodation with the Driver, or not. Here is still another illustration of the old Hollywood noir principle that a movie lives its life not through its hero, but within its shadows.

The Driver lives somewhere (somehow that's improbable, since we expect him to descend full-blown into the story). His neighbor is Irene, played by Carey Mulligan , that template of vulnerability. She has a young son, Benecio (Kaden Leos), who seems to stir the Driver's affection, although he isn't the effusive type. They grow warm, but in a week, her husband, Standard ( Oscar Isaac ), is released from prison. Against our expectations, Standard isn't jealous or hostile about the new neighbor, but sizes him up, sees a professional and quickly pitches a $1 million heist idea. That will provide the engine for the rest of the story, and as Irene and Benecio are endangered, the Driver reveals deep feelings and loyalties indeed, and undergoes enormous risk at little necessary benefit to himself.

The film by the Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (" Bronson "), based on a novel by James Sallis , peoples its story with characters who bring lifetimes onto the screen, in contrast to the Driver, who brings as little as possible. Ron Perlman seems to be a big-time operator working out of a small-time front, a pizzeria in a strip mall. Albert Brooks , not the slightest bit funny, plays a producer of the kinds of B movies the Driver does stunt driving for — and also has a sideline in crime. These people are ruthless.

More benign is Bryan Cranston , as the kind of man you know the Driver must have behind him, a genius at auto repairs, restoration and supercharging.

I mentioned CGI earlier. "Drive" seems to have little of it. Most of the stunt driving looks real to me, with cars of weight and heft, rather than animated impossible fantasies. The entire film, in fact, seems much more real than the usual action-crime-chase concoctions we've grown tired of. Here is a movie with respect for writing, acting and craft. It has respect for knowledgable moviegoers. There were moments when I was reminded of " Bullitt ," which was so much better than the films it inspired. The key thing you want to feel, during a chase scene, is involvement in the purpose of the chase. You have to care. Too often we're simply witnessing technology.

Maybe there was another reason I thought of "Bullitt." Ryan Gosling is a charismatic actor, as Steve McQueen was. He embodies presence and sincerity. Ever since his chilling young Jewish neo-Nazi in " The Believer " (2001), he has shown a gift for finding arresting, powerful characters. An actor who can fall in love with a love doll and make us believe it, as he did in " Lars and the Real Girl " (2007), can achieve just about anything. "Drive" looks like one kind of movie in the ads, and it is that kind of movie. It is also a rebuke to most of the movies it looks like.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film Credits

Drive (2011)

Rated R for strong brutal bloody violence, language and some nudity

100 minutes

Carey Mulligan as Irene

Oscar Isaac as Standard

Bryan Cranston as Shannon

Albert Brooks as Bernie

Ron Perlman as Nino

Ryan Gosling as Driver

Directed by

Nicolas Winding Refn
Hossein Amini

Based on the novel by

James Sallis

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Movie Review | 'Drive'

Fasten Your Seat Belts, the Chevy Is Taking Off

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By A. O. SCOTT

Sept. 15, 2011

A long time ago, as a young filmmaker besotted with the hard-boiled pleasures of classic Hollywood, Jean-Luc Godard claimed that all anyone needed to make a film was a girl and a gun . In his new movie, “Drive,” Nicolas Winding Refn, in thrall to a later Hollywood tradition, tests out a slightly different formula. In this case all you need is a guy and a car.

In the brilliant opening sequence the formula seems to work beautifully. The car is, of all things, a late-model silver Chevy Impala, the kind of generic, functional ride you might rent at the airport on a business trip. The guy is Ryan Gosling — his character has no known proper name, and is variously referred to as “the driver,” “the kid” and “him” — and to watch him steer through Los Angeles at night is to watch a virtuoso at work. Behind the wheel of a getaway car after an uninteresting, irrelevant and almost botched robbery, the driver glides past obstacles and shakes off pursuers, slowing down as often as he accelerates and maintaining a steady pulse rate even as the soundtrack winds up the tension to heart attack levels.

The virtuosity on display is also the director’s, of course, and that, for better and for worse, is pretty much the point of “Drive,” the coolest movie around and therefore the latest proof that cool is never cool enough. Mr. Winding Refn is a Danish-born director (“Bronson,” “Valhalla Rising,” the “Pusher” trilogy), some of whose earlier films have inspired ardent, almost cultish devotion in cinephile circles.

His own love of movies can hardly be doubted, and there’s nothing wrong with his taste. He likes the stripped-down highway movies of the 1960s and ’70s — the kind that Quentin Tarantino celebrated in “Death Proof” — and also the atmospheric masculine melancholy associated with Michael Mann . You might also catch a hint of Paul Schrader’s “American Gigolo” and, with respect to the story rather than to the visual style, a whole bunch of Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone westerns.

Mr. Gosling’s driver, like Mr. Eastwood’s Man With No Name , is a solitary figure with no background or connections but with skills that defy explanation. In addition to his getaway gigs, he drives stunt cars for movies — the source of a witty trompe l’oeil sequence early in the film — and might have a future on the racing circuit.

At least that’s what his friend and sometime employer Shannon (Bryan Cranston) thinks. He has a plan to persuade a couple of local gangsters (Ron Perlman and Albert Brooks) to invest in a car that will be both Shannon’s and the driver’s ticket out of their marginal, sun-baked, film noir existence.

You don’t need me to tell you that the plan goes astray and that before too long the girl and the gun come into play, in more or less that order. The girl’s name is Irene, she is played by Carey Mulligan, and she lives with her young son down the hall from the driver. A neighborly flirtation is disrupted by the return from prison of Irene’s husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac), who gets pulled back into his old life of crime in such a way as to bring out the guns and require from the driver a few gruesomely violent acts of chivalry.

There is a bag full of money, a crosshatching of vendettas and betrayals, and an ambience of crepuscular Southern California anomie. There is also one scene of pure automotive pleasure, when the driver takes Irene and her son on a cruise along the kind of concrete culvert that has often been used for car chases in the past. But this is not “The Big Lebowski,” which took such delight in its status as pastiche that it ended up in a zone of wild originality and real feeling. “Drive” is somber, slick and earnest, and also a prisoner of its own emptiness, substituting moods for emotions and borrowed style for real audacity.

This is not to say that the movie is bad — as I have suggested, the skill and polish are hard to dispute — but rather that it is, for all its bravado, timid and conventional. In the hands of great filmmakers (like Mr. Eastwood and Mr. Godard, to stick with relevant examples) genre can be a bridge between familiar narrative structures and new insights about how people interact and behave. Those are precisely what “Drive” is missing, in spite of some intriguingly nuanced performances.

The softness of Mr. Gosling’s face and his curiously high-pitched, nasal voice make him an unusually sweet-seeming avenger, even when he is stomping bad guys into bloody pulp. And Ms. Mulligan’s whispery diction and kewpie-doll features have a similarly disarming effect. Irene seems like much too nice a person to be mixed up in such nasty business. Not that she’s really mixed up in it. Her innocence is axiomatic and part of the reason the driver goes to such messianic lengths to protect her.

To make the movie work on its own constricted terms, you need — beyond this girl and this guy, and the cars and the weapons — a colorful supporting cast. And this is what saves “Drive” from arch tedium: Mr. Cranston’s wheezing, anxious loser; Christina Hendricks’s seething, taciturn underworld professional; and above all Mr. Brooks’s diabolically nebbishy incarnation of corruption and venality.

In his self-authored comic roles, Mr. Brooks often exudes a passive-aggressive hostility, a latent capacity for violence held in check by neurosis and cowardice. He lets you assume the same in “Drive” until the moment he stabs someone in the eye with a fork. It’s a shocking and oddly glorious moment — something a lot of us, without quite knowing it or being able to explain just why, have been waiting 30 years to see.

“Drive” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Acts of gruesomely violent chivalry and vehicular aggression.

Opens on Friday nationwide.

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn; written by Hossein Amini, based on the book by James Sallis; director of photography, Newton Thomas Sigel; edited by Matthew Newman; music by Cliff Martinez; production design by Beth Mickle; costumes by Erin Benach; produced by Marc Platt, Adam Siegel, John Palermo, Gigi Pritzker and Michel Litvak; released by FilmDistrict. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes.

WITH : Ryan Gosling (Driver), Carey Mulligan (Irene), Bryan Cranston (Shannon), Christina Hendricks (Blanche), Ron Perlman (Nino), Oscar Isaac (Standard) and Albert Brooks (Bernie Rose).

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Film Review: ‘Drive,’ Starring Ryan Gosling, Delivers Fresh Guilty-Pleasure Thrills

"Drive" takes the tired heist-gone-bad genre out for a spin, delivering fresh guilty-pleasure thrills in the process.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

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The villain in “ Drive ” admits he used to produce movies — sexy ’80s action pics, to be exact. “One critic called them ‘European,'” the sleazeball brags. Now he’s starring in one: a sleek, retro-styled B-movie that benefits immensely from the aloof, virtually nihilistic edge Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (“Bronson”) brings to the party. Starring Ryan Gosling as a Hollywood stuntman/getaway driver, “Drive” takes the tired heist-gone-bad genre out for a spin, delivering fresh guilty-pleasure thrills in the process. Serious-actor cast, plus pic’s selection in competition at Cannes, should lend prestige to the Sept. 16 domestic release.

After serving up a pair of intense, emotionally draining perfs in “Blue Valentine” and “All Good Things,” Gosling swings to the other extreme with “Drive,” channeling Alain Delon’s cipher-like hitman from “Le Samourai” — a cool-as-ice model that conveniently allows screenwriters to forgo the requisite backstory when creating compassionate-criminal types. The key to such one-dimensional characters is that they live by a rigorous code of conduct, and Gosling’s unnamed Driver is no exception.

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Romantic as their outing proves, Irene isn’t exactly single. Benicio’s dad, Standard (Oscar Isaac), comes home from jail a week later, enlisting Driver in a ploy that involves stealing a million dollars for mostly honorable reasons. Things go bad, blood and brains are splattered about with sickening glee, and Driver finds his chivalrous intentions put to the test as those behind the botched heist threaten to harm Irene and Benicio, whose protection evidently matters enough to Driver that he’s willing to risk his life.

Adapted by Hossein Amini (best known for “The Wings of the Dove” and other highbrow literary fare) from James Sallis’ Los Angeles-set novel, “Drive” doesn’t quite know how to handle the character vacuum at its core, but compensates by surrounding its protag with a colorful supporting ensemble. There’s Bryan Cranston (“Breaking Bad”) as the surrogate father who supplies Driver his wheels; Ron Perlman as a ruthless big shot running schemes from his strip-mall pizza joint; and Albert Brooks, cast deliciously against type, as the aforementioned producer-turned-crime-boss. On the female front, vampy “Mad Men” redhead Christina Hendricks makes an all-too-brief appearance, while Mulligan, though undeniably sweet, seems too wholesome for what would typically be the pic’s femme-fatale role.

Like Quentin Tarantino, Refn is an exploitation-movie junkie, so his cinematic references mirror ’70s and ’80s cult faves like “To Live and Die in L.A.” more than the spare, unforgiving noir novels and films Sallis had in mind. Such questionable influences can be felt from the neon-bright opening credits to Refn’s retro music choices — a mix of tension-ratcheting synthesizer tones and catchy club anthems — that collectively give the film its consistent tone.

Whereas most muscle-car action pics are visually and narratively flat, however, “Drive” displays stunning style. With its spare storytelling economy, this is the sort of film that would launch a career, if only it were Refn’s debut, rather than his eighth feature. Still, it does mark Refn’s first for-hire Hollywood production, giving him the chance to work with the likes of Steven Soderbergh’s go-to composer, Cliff Martinez, and Bryan Singer’s trusted d.p., Newton Thomas Sigel, whose high-contrast widescreen framing puts a harsh new edge on east L.A. locations.

Among a host of impressive setpieces, the most remarkable is a white-knuckle car chase that once again reminds how scarce fancy driving has gotten onscreen, deservedly earning a round of enthusiastic applause from the Cannes crowd. (Though dozens of drivers are credited, Gosling did a number of his own stunts.)

Still, it’s surprising that a film called “Drive” doesn’t feature more driving. Amini’s script barely explores Driver’s status as a stuntman, offering only a thin connection between his high-stakes day job and equally dangerous private life (in the form of a prosthetic mask he dons in the film’s brutal score-settling finale). What the character lacks in psychology, he compensates for through action and iconic costuming. Come Halloween, don’t be surprised to see fans dressed as Driver, wearing a white satin racing jacket with a giant gold scorpion on the back. “Drive” is fetishistic like that, reveling in such details as the growl of a GTO engine or the creak of Gosling’s gloves, and should go a long way to boost the profiles of both its director and star.

Production: A FilmDistrict release presented in association with Bold Films and OddLot Entertainment of a Marc Platt/Motel Movies production. (International sales: Sierra/Affinity, Beverly Hills.) Produced by Marc E. Platt, Adam Siegel, Gigi Pritzker, Michael Litvak, John Palermo. Executive producers, David Lancaster, Gary Michael Walters, William Lischak, Linda McDonough, Jeffrey Stott. Co-producers, Garrick Dion, Jonathan Oakes, James Smith, Frank Capra III. Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Screenplay, Hossein Amini, based on the book by James Sallis.
Crew: Camera (color, widescreen); editor, Matthew Newman; music, Cliff Martinez; music supervisors, Brian McNelis, Eric Craig; production designer, Beth Mickle; art director, Christopher Tandon; set decorator, Lisa Sessions Morgan; costume designer, Erin Benach; sound (Dolby Digital/SDDS/DTS), Robert Eber; sound designers, Lou Bender, Victor Ray Ennis; re-recording mixers, Robert Fernandez, Dave Patterson; stunt coordinator, Darrin M. Prescott; special effects coordinator, Jimmy Lorimer; associate producer, Joe Fineman; assistant director, Frank Capra III; casting, Mindy Marin. Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (competing), May 19, 2011. Running time: 100 MIN.
With: Driver - Ryan Gosling Irene - Carey Mulligan Shannon - Bryan Cranston Bernie Rose - Albert Brooks Standard - Oscar Isaac Nino - Ron Perlman Blanche - Christina Hendricks Benicio - Kaden Leos

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A Twisty, Brutal 'Drive' For A Level-Headed Hero

David Edelstein

The Fast Lane : A Hollywood stunt driver (Ryan Gosling) earns a little extra by driving getaway cars by night. Richard Foreman/FilmDistrict hide caption

The hero of Drive is called "Driver" because that's what he does, and in a thriller this self-consciously existential, what he does is who he is.

He's played by Ryan Gosling as a kind of anti-blowhard. He's taciturn, watchful, cool. He works as a mechanic and sometimes a Hollywood driving stuntman. He also drives getaway cars with astonishing proficiency and a computer-like knowledge of L.A. surface streets, holding a matchstick between his teeth as if to keep his mouth from moving, and his feelings under wraps.

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Genre: Crime, Action, Drama
Running Time: 100 minutes

Rated R for disturbing content and some language

But Driver down deep is one of God's Loneliest Men. He needs someone to love, to risk everything for, to give him a reason to drive.

Drive was a sensation at this year's Cannes Film Festival, where they really go for existential thrillers, and this recalls such arty French favorites as Walter Hill's The Driver and Michael Mann's Thief . The ambience is floating, the characters off to the side of the frame leaving lots of empty space.

What distinguishes Drive from its predecessors is the ultra-graphic violence — the sort that gore lovers call "wet." After each shooting, stabbing and stomping, you won't be saying, "Is he dead?"

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'Sorry About The Noise'

Credit: FilmDistrict

'West On 7th Street Bridge'

'He's A Good Guy'

The director is Nicolas Winding Refn, the Dane who made, among other films, a fast, tense crime trilogy called Pusher . He's a crackerjack craftsman. In an early heist sequence, Driver uses his knowledge of the urban maze to evade both cruisers and 'copters, and it's a tight, twisty piece of staging.

But Refn aims higher. He's said he's interested in the dark side of heroism, the way "righteous adherence to a code" can shift into the realm of the psychotic. I think he's more interested in punkish shock and splatter, and that he's just the guy to take Hollywood action to the next level: slick, amoral and unbelievably vicious.

The movie is cruel, but it isn't cold. Gosling lets emotion gradually bleed through Driver's impassive mask, and he becomes intensely likable. He has a tender relationship with Shannon, his manager in all three arenas — auto-repair, film stunts and crime --who's played by Breaking Bad 's Bryan Cranston in his third big movie of the last three months.

And boy, has Cranston earned that success. Shannon is a sweet, gimpy, luckless man who dreams of building a racecar to be driven by — who else? — Driver. For funding, he goes to Bernie Rose, a creepily inexpressive businessman played by, believe it or not, Albert Brooks.

Love thy neighbor: Our hero's one weakness is his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), with whom he imagines building a life — until harsh realities intrude. Richard Foreman Jr/FilmDistrict hide caption

Love thy neighbor: Our hero's one weakness is his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), with whom he imagines building a life — until harsh realities intrude.

How dirty is Bernie? It's well into Drive before you find out — and maybe an hour until the industrial-strength splatter. In the meantime, Driver becomes involved, platonically, with his neighbor, a pretty young mother named Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her lonely little boy. After some happy montages — ending with Driver giving up crime, hoping against hope for a life with Irene — the woman's husband suddenly gets out of prison, so that ends that pipe dream. Worse, the ex-con turns out to owe money to thugs who threaten to kill his wife and son if he doesn't rob a pawnshop for them. And so Driver is driven to make one last drive.

As you might have gathered from this synopsis, Drive is ridiculously contrived. But it works — and works you over. The carnage is so horrible that people at my screening cried out. And to think that in the middle of much of it is Albert Brooks. There's something magical about his performance. You can taste his pleasure in playing his cards close to the vest, in not — as in his own movies — having to work so hard to be crazily, humiliatingly vulnerable. Let everyone else, including the audience, writhe.

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‘drive’: cannes 2011 review.

The arty Danish fast-cars-and-crime thriller, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, should be promotable to good box office results from both discerning and popcorn audiences come September.

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

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Ryan Gosling On Drive : This Is My Superhero Movie

The star talks movie mythology, his childhood obsession with rambo, and why he loves working with director nicolas winding refn..

Thanks to the unlikely combination of valiantly dispersing New York street fights and starring in one of the year’s best movies (hint: it’s not Blue Valentine ), Ryan Gosling has not only emerged as movies’ man of the moment — he’s also, at long last, apparently comfortable in becoming a genuine (and not just for The Notebook ) star.

In Drive , director Nicolas Winding Refn’s ( Bronson , Valhalla Rising ) neo-noir thriller, Gosling plays an enigmatic outsider known only as “Driver,” a Hollywood stunt jockey who moonlights as a getaway wheel man for a local crime boss. Co-starring Carey Mulligan and Albert Brooks, the film is a genre piece that evokes a long-gone era of car movies, with obvious antecedents like Walter Hill’s The Driver and William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. mixed with the dirty neon of a little-seen modern Los Angeles (Thom Anderson would approve ) and set to a pulsing electronic score from Cliff Martinez and Johnny Jewel.

We met with Gosling — who looked like he’d just stepped straight off the electric pastel poster for his movie — for a chat about Drive and working with Refn.

RT: You said that since everyone’s been doing a superhero movie you thought, “Why not do one?” Have you been approached to do superhero movies?

Ryan Gosling: Yeah.

Many times?

Mmm-hmm, yep.

But Drive ended up being the superhero movie for you?

This is the one. I wanted to make this one. I didn’t always know I was gonna get to make it, but I did.

What was it about the film? Had you read the script when Hugh Jackman and director Neil Marshall were attached to make it?

I think that might be the original one I read. I read a few drafts. I read one as well where he wasn’t a stunt driver at all, which was a newer draft — maybe that’s the one Hugh Jackman had; I’m not sure exactly. Basically when I read it, in trying to figure out who would do something like this, the only way to make sense of this is that this is a guy that’s seen too many movies, and he’s started to confuse his life for a film. He’s lost in the mythology of Hollywood and he’s become an amalgamation of all the characters that he admires.

I could relate to that because back when I was a kid, when I first saw First Blood , it kind of put a spell on me and I thought I was Rambo. I went to school the next day and I put all these knives in my Fisher-Price Houdini kit and I f**king threw them at all these kids at recess, and I got suspended. I didn’t hit any kids and I didn’t hurt anybody, thank god, but my parents were like, “You can’t watch violent movies anymore.” They were careful about what they showed me because [movies] really did have a big impact on me. They said I could only watch Bible movies and National Geographic films, but those are really f**king violent, you know [ laughs ] — but I could see where they were going.

So I connected to the film that way — in that films can cast spells. And cars can as well, because you get in a car, and you get out, and you don’t remember the trip, you know? There’s also something about cars where you can really put your identity in the driver’s seat: no one’s watching you, so you don’t have to be self-conscious — you can just watch. I can put a kind of spell on you. So the idea of movie mythology and the idea of the car being a vehicle to take you in to someone’s subconscious felt like there was a possibility for a kind of a superhero film, about a guy who wants to be a superhero.

On a side note, I always wanted to see a violent John Hughes movie. I love John Hughes, but if there was a head smashing in Pretty in Pink , then it would be perfect. [ Laughs ]

How did this recall a John Hughes movie for you?

It became that once we started thinking. It wasn’t that initially. The original script was much more authentic to Los Angeles gang culture and the reality; it was more realistic. We wanted this to be more of a fairytale, like a Grimm brothers fairytale, so we had to change it. In the process of writing it we were talking about movies and for some reason we ended up talking about John Hughes movies and, like, Purple Rain . There’s something about this character: he has cinematic ideas of romance, and he lives in a fantasy. And that’s what John Hughes movies are — they’re just all cotton candy and champagne. The movie needed that, but it also needed a little blood on the cotton candy, to give it balance. We used that as a guide.

You got to personally choose Nicolas as the director — a guy who also explored the blurring of character and mythology recently in Bronson and Valhalla Rising . What was it about him that made you feel he was right for this film?

He fetishizes the frame. Everything in the frame has to physically turn him on, and if it doesn’t, he won’t shoot it. So he makes very personal films, because he only shoots what he wants to see. His movies have a real identity, and he won’t repeat himself. They’re movies that you want to see in a movie theater. You don’t wanna see them at home. You know, in Valhalla Rising , when One Eye cuts the guts out of his friend and shows him his own guts, and everyone starts freaking out and hitting each other and laughing and they don’t know how to feel — you wanna be in a theater to experience that. I wanted this movie to be a film you wanted to see in a movie theater, and I think those are the kinds of films that he makes. I also feel like he and I were sharing the same dream, and kind of continue to — so I could fight for his inability to make anything that’s not personal, because it’s also personal to me.

Drive opens in US theaters this week, September 23 in the UK, and October 27 in Australia.

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By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

Buckle up for the existential bloodbath of Drive , a brilliant piece of nasty business that races on a B-movie track until it switches to the dizzying fuel of undiluted creativity. Damn, it’s good. You can get buzzed just from the fumes coming off this wild thing.

That’s Ryan Gosling at the wheel. He plays Driver (I told you it was existential), a Hollywood stunt racer who moonlights as a getaway wheel man. Gosling is dynamite in the role, silent, stoic, radiating mystery. Driver isn’t into planning robberies. He doesn’t carry a gun. “I drive,” he says. And he proves it in an opening chase scene so thrillingly intense and cleanly edited it will give you whiplash.

Sharing Drive ‘s metaphorical wheel is Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, a sensation on the Euro art-house circuit with the bruising Pusher trilogy, Valhalla Rising and Bronson . Refn makes his Hollywood debut with Drive without putting his soul or his balls on the auction block. Refn is a virtuoso, blending tough and tender with such uncanny skill that he deservedly won the Best Director prize at Cannes.

Drive was once intended as a fast-and-furious blockbuster for Hugh Jackman. Then Gosling stepped in and met Refn. As the actor drove the director home, the radio blasted REO Speedwagon, and Refn began rocking out. That was it. Their movie would evoke what it is to drive around listening to music and trying to feel something.

Drive is a genre movie. So watch for comparisons, especially to films of the Seventies and Eighties that pulsate with a synth score. Think early Michael Mann ( Thief ) and William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. Driver is a loner, suggesting Alain Delon in Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï . Like Alan Ladd in George Stevens’ classic Western Shane , the loner meets a woman, Irene (Carey Mulligan), with a young son (Kaden Leos). She also has an ex-con husband (Oscar Isaac), so Driver must hold in his urges until, well, he can’t.

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Chances are you could play the name-that-influence game for days, and I’d happily join you. But that’d be a disservice to Drive , since Refn, like Quentin Tarantino, has the gift of assimilating film history into a fresh take carrying his DNA. Take his fetishistic eye for detail, from Driver’s toothpick to the satin bomber jacket with a gold scorpion on its back.

Refn is wicked good with actors, paring down the dialogue in the script by Hossein Amini (deftly adapted from James Sallis’ novel) so that the backstory must play out on their faces. Challenge met. Gosling mesmerizes in a role a lesser actor could tip into absurdity. Bryan Cranston, on fire with Breaking Bad , brings wit and compassion to Driver’s fatherly mentor. And Mulligan is glorious, inhabiting a role that is barely there and making it resonant and whole. Prepare to be blown away by Albert Brooks, cast way against type as crime boss Bernie Rose. Brooks, an iconically sharp comic voice, has toyed with villainy before (see Out of Sight ), but never like this. Brooks’ performance, veined with dark humor and chilling menace (watch him with a blade), deserves to have Oscar calling.

Violence drives Drive . A heist gone bad involving a femme fatale (an incendiary cameo from Mad Men ‘s Christina Hendricks) puts blood on the walls. Ditto a pounding Driver delivers at a strip club. An elevator scene with Driver, Irene and an assassin is time-capsule sexy and scary. In league with camera whiz Newton Thomas Sigel and composer Cliff Martinez, Refn creates a fever dream that sucks you in. Or maybe you’ll hate it. Drive is a polarizer. It’s also pure cinema, a grenade of image and sound ready to blow.

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Movie Review: Drive (2011)

Mark Zhuravsky
Movie Reviews
7 responses
--> September 16, 2011

The Driver (Ryan Gosling) has no need for a name. He embodies his job description — a Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver. Life outside of the 1973 Chevy Malibu, his vehicle of choice, is anonymous. That is, until Irene (Carey Mulligan), who lives down the hall, walks into the Driver’s life. Irene is a single mother, caring for her son while Standard (Oscar Issac of “ Sucker Punch “) languishes in prison. But Standard is due to be out soon enough, and while Driver plays father figure for several lovely days, the quiet man embodied with moments of precise rage by Gosling will soon be thrust into an increasingly convoluted criminal scheme. His survival is improbable, leaving many grisly scenes in its wake but the Driver never slows his pace, or lets down his guard.

Add this author to the quickly growing cult of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive , a genre picture that is as unstoppable as its main character, furious and gentle in equal parts, a complete triumph of style over substance and yet not insubstantial. The Onion’s AV Club deemed it “retro genre heaven” and it’s tempting to agree — but it’s also an American thriller filtered through the mind of a European fan, the pacing distinctly Refn-esque. There is a fascination with details, like the Driver’s clothes becoming more and more blood splattered as he racks up a kill count. There is the man himself, almost mute and just a tidbit less imposing than the One Eye of “ Valhalla Rising .” The fact that Gosling can stir up genuine tension despite his pretty-boy looks is one of this movie’s many victories.

The men that come in conflict with Driver over a botched crime scheme are Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks — imagine if Hank Scorpio wasn’t a cartoon villain but a toned down career criminal) and Nino (Ron Perlman, in full-on gangster mode and granted one defining stand-out scene). Rose is the brains and Nino the muscle and yet the two are notably human, hardly caricatures or bland, faceless villains. By sheer bad luck, Rose happens to be the primary investor in a race car that Gosling would have been set to drive. Rose is bolstered by Shannon (Bryan Cranston), a permanently down-on-his-luck mechanic who owns a garage that Driver occasionally toils in between transporting criminals and crashing cars in the movies. Cranston’s Shannon is a sad-sack case who doesn’t realize he’s doomed from the on-set and a late scene with Cranston and Brooks is startlingly sad.

Is it wrong to characterize Drive as an action movie? Maybe insofar as present action templates are concerned — this film is dead-set against trading silence for overwhelming noise. Refn understands the value of the moments before and after the onslaught and milks them with merciless efficiency. It serves the film better than you can imagine, aided with another excellent Cliff Martinez score, playing like a winking Tangerine Dream cover band. Evocative and exact lighting by Newton Thomas Sigel (Bryan Singer’s DP of choice) solidifies a key moment in an elevator as one of the year’s best stand-alone scenes.

There’s a lot to like and love about Drive and perhaps that’s why this review reads more like a best-of compilation than straight-forward criticism. To fall under the spell of the film is to be reminded why you love movies in the first place — in part because the films you love are ones you can watch with friends, eying their facial expressions like you’re nursing an addiction, the satisfaction of reliving the same moments that floored you through them. Drive is a film that spins a little substance into movie magic, and invites you to bask in it (while sneaking in deliriously over-the-top violence and well-executed car chases). It’s the total package; not a perfect film, but in a way an inimitable triumph — a unique coalition of director, actors, and crew.

Tagged: driver , mafia , neighbor , novel adaptation

The best of the five boroughs is now represented. Brooklyn in the house! I'm a hardworking film writer, blogger, and former co-host of "It's No Timecop" podcast ! Find me on Twitter @markzhur .

Movie Review: The Last Exorcism Part 2 (2013) Movie Review: Masquerade (2012) Movie Review: Sightseers (2012) Movie Review: Iron Man 3 (2013) Movie Review: Screwed (2011) Movie Review: Looper (2012) Movie Review: The Grey (2012)

'Movie Review: Drive (2011)' have 7 comments

September 18, 2011 @ 10:31 pm Tyler's Comment

man, gosling has steadily gotten better and better at this acting thing. although he doesn’t say much in this particular movie his presence is riveting.

September 19, 2011 @ 3:18 am VanSpeedster

Awesome use of soundtrack through out. The rest of the movie not so awesome.

September 20, 2011 @ 12:30 am Arc Games

Albert Brooks owned the show. Whoda thunk Brooks as a gangster..?

September 20, 2011 @ 1:34 pm Baywater

In a nutshell, Drive is a very ‘crafty’ film with too much downtime between anything of substance happening.

September 22, 2011 @ 2:35 am SomeGuy

Great review for a great movie, Mark.

September 22, 2011 @ 3:44 pm Hecklan

Good overall movie but it lacked that epic finale it was yearning for. It kinda ended on a “hohum” note.

September 30, 2011 @ 10:58 am Wes

Last act left me hanging. Pretty good flick up to that though.

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Drive – review

N icolas Winding Refn's Drive is an LA pulp thriller, very brutal, very slick. It arrives here on an eddy of editorial hype; there is hardly a male pundit or columnist in Britain under 70 who hasn't declared a simpering man-crush on its star, Ryan Gosling , playing the permafrost-cool hero with no name. He's a Hollywood stunt driver with a toothpick in the corner of his mouth, wearing a sleek bomber jacket with a scorpion on the back. Secretly, he also works for scary criminals as a wheelman, a getaway specialist; he gets top dollar, because he's the very best. With no fear, he can drive at terrifying speeds with extraordinary manoeuvrability; he has a sixth sense for cop cars and police helicopters. However, he has one super-special rule that the robbers must agree to, but which makes zero narrative sense. More of that in a moment.

Drive is a good film with great visual flair, in the style of Elmore Leonard or Quentin Tarantino, and with a little of their natural gruesome gaiety and gallows humour. Gosling has charisma and presence, although his facial expression is often set to "sardonic". Yet I can't quite join in the widespread critical enthusiasm that has greeted this film, and on the two times I've seen it, I couldn't join in the nervous shrieks of audience laughter that its ultra-violence provokes.

The idea is that Gosling's impassive driver gets his Hollywood stunt gigs and maybe also his criminal engagements through a garage owner, a cheerful crook called Shannon (Bryan Cranston) with mob connections. Gosling's life looks as if it will be turned around when he falls quietly in love with his next-door neighbour Irene, played with dignity and tenderness by Carey Mulligan . She's a single mom with a little boy who likes Gosling: her husband Standard (Oscar Isaac) is an incompetent crook now in jail, and it is evidently Gosling's tough, unspoken decency that keeps this relationship platonic. He is, moreover, joining a legit business, a speed-racing show Shannon is setting up with his mobster buddies Bernie and Nino – terrific performances from Albert Brooks (a rare bad-guy part) and Ron Perlman. But then Irene's man gets out of the joint, still mixed up in rough stuff, and just for Irene's sake, Gosling does one last driving job on his behalf, which of course goes horribly wrong.

Here is where is this tense, taut drama takes a lurching left-turn into ultra-violence and chaos. Gosling's driver had until this moment seemed like a basically sympathetic, romantic guy – involved in crime of course, but who made a point of not carrying a gun. Now the catastrophe of this last job seems to unlock a psychopathic capacity for extreme brutality. Is this a facet of his personality? Or just a style accessory for the film in general? So many people in this film seem to have the same capacity, and often the violence rips holes in the plot, as well as the bodies. At one stage, somebody kills someone else while chillingly cooing reassurance, yet what he's after is more or less under his is nose, and it doesn't occur to him to look for it. At another stage, someone gets horrifyingly stomped to death in an incautious location, with the body airily undisposed of. A bit of a rash killing in this era of CSI and CCTV and door-to-door inquiries.

Then there is Gosling's rule, supposedly a mark of his hyper-strict professionalism. He will drive the robbers as brilliantly as they could ever wish. But only for five minutes. When the five minutes is up, no matter where they are, he parks and leaves them there. What on earth is the point of a jobsworth getaway driver who downs tools after five minutes? A getaway guy surely has to get the robbers to their pre-arranged safe house, no matter what. What do this movie's creators imagine a robbery involves? It's like having a cab driver who says he'll drive you really really fast in the direction of your house, but only for five minutes. The naivety and absurdity sit uncomfortably with all that super-cool violence.

That said, there are some great cameos with very nice Leonardesque lines. Christina Hendricks almost steals the picture as a mysterious woman called Blanche – suitably white-faced with terror at the awful fate she correctly suspects awaits her when the heist goes wrong. Hendricks brilliantly transmits pure, elemental fear. Brooks and Perlman have some crackling dialogue, especially Perlman who complains that east coast gangster bullies still pinch his cheeks as if he's a kid. "I'm 59 years old!" A world of humiliation and despair is cleverly contained in that. Drive is a movie with power but is still directionless; the acceleration is great, but the steering needs looking at.

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“Drive” is a Los Angeles neo-noir, a neon-lit crime story made with lots of visual style. It’s a film in love with both traditional noir mythology and ultra-modern violence, a combination that is not ideal.

Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn won the best director award at Cannes, and it’s easy to see why this tale of an emotionless wheelman (Ryan Gosling) who lives to drive and makes a rare stab at human connection with a fetching neighbor took the prize. Impeccably shot by Newton Thomas Sigel, “Drive” always looks dressed to kill. Making fine use of Los Angeles locations, particularly the lonely downtown streets around the L.A. River, “Drive” has a slick, highly romanticized pastel look calculated to win friends and influence people.

Less user-friendly is the film’s disturbing violence. “Drive” doesn’t spend a lot of time on mayhem, but what does get put on screen is intense, unsettling and increasingly grotesque and graphic as the film goes on.

For fans of director Refn, known among chaos aficionados for made-in-Europe violent fare like “The Pusher” trilogy and “Bronson,” this is bloody business as usual. But the mayhem here so clashes with the high style and traditionalism of the rest of the film that when the bloodletting goes into overdrive, so to speak, it throws you out of the picture, diluting the mood rather than enhancing it.

Certainly there could be no more familiar character to movie fans than the film’s protagonist, so iconic he’s reminiscent of Alain Delon’s Jef Costello in Jean-Pierre Melville’s classic “Le Samourai” and as written by Hossein Amini from the James Sallis novel so self-consciously mythologized he doesn’t even have a name.

Coolly played by Gosling, the driver is a monosyllabic loner with a monotone voice, a toothpick in his mouth, and a fondness for a silver racing jacket with a giant yellow scorpion on the back. By day he works in a garage on Reseda Boulevard run by hard luck Shannon (“Breaking Bad’s” Bryan Cranston) and does stunt driving for the movies. Once the sun goes down, he drives getaway cars for criminal types.

“There are 100,000 streets in this city,” the driver says, echoing the famous “there are 8 million stories in the naked city” line of yore. Just tell him where and when to pick you up — and don’t even think about making him wait more than five minutes — and he promises to ferry you to safety. For a price.

“Drive” opens with what might be its most successful, least violent set piece, a getaway from a robbery choreographed to quietly insistent techno music by Johnny Jewel. As he plays cat and mouse with L.A.’s finest, the driver reveals himself to be a highly proficient, emotionless technician with nerves of tempered steel. When the man pulls on his leather driving gloves, it’s best to get out of the way.

Trying to keep as low a profile as possible, the driver lives in an apartment building next to MacArthur Park and shops in the picturesque Big 6 supermarket nearby. To say that he is closed off to all forms of human emotion is putting it very mildly indeed.

But, hey, wouldn’t you know it, living right down the hall from the driver is Irene (Carey Mulligan, underutilized), an attractive young woman who does have a name. She also has a young son named Benicio (Kaden Leos) who the driver inexplicably takes a fatherly interest in. Whatever this film’s strengths, psychological motivation is not one of them.

Before this platonic idyll can get out of first gear, Irene’s husband Standard (the gifted Oscar Isaac) comes back from the prison where he’s been conveniently warehoused and the driver prepares to retreat into his mythic shell.

But wait. Standard comes home to trouble with some bad guys, bad guys who make the mistake of threatening Irene and young Benicio. Ever the knight errant, the driver volunteers his help, but everything starts to go wrong in ways that lead to all that bloodshed.

Though many aspects of “Drive” are, for better or worse, intentionally familiar, there is one element that is different, and that is Albert Brooks’ performance as Bernie Rose, a genial but dangerous criminal of the driver’s acquaintance. The actor brings a fine air of scornful, eccentric menace to the role. When people die in his presence, it’s not laughter they’re dying of.

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Drive Review

23 Sep 2011

100 minutes

Alan Ladd's 1953 classic Western Shane is a tale of a man who, trying to escape his past, turns up at a homestead and, in trying to save a woman and her child from black-hats, finds himself drawn inexorably back into the violence he has tried to escape. Drive is very much like Shane, in that it has a strong, silent hero, determined to do right by the innocent while struggling against his character which, as Heraclitus so pithily put it, is also his fate. But it also has a sequence of a man having his cranium reduced to a bloody pulp by an enthusiastically deployed boot à la Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible, someone gets a fork shoved in their face, and a good portion of it is shot in slow motion. It is therefore that much better.

Nicolas Winding Refn, a Danish director best known for the Pusher trilogy and 2008’s thug-opic Bronson, is proof of the fact that American pulp is sometimes much better done by Europeans. Think of Paul Verhoeven’s mischievous satires RoboCop and Starship Troopers. Here Refn delivers a gripping, gritty neo-noir drenched in so much mid-’80s styling that the only thing that seems to be missing is Simon Bates thanking us for listening and exhorting us to enjoy the film.

Refn’s skills are not limited to artfully conceived bloodletting: an opening sequence in which our hero practises his trade, transporting a pair of thieves from their place of business to safety, dodging, parking and reversing, is a masterclass of cutting in which the precision of the editing matches that of the driving (and actually it’s far more exciting than the more conventional car chase later in the movie). Meanwhile Newton Thomas Sigel’s sheeny cinematography delivers gorgeous chopper shots of the neon-flecked night-time streets of LA and moody renderings of asphalt car parks, race-tracks and diners. The cumulative and exhilarating sensation is that Walter Hill or William Friedkin made an urban noir sometime back in 1986 and somehow you missed it (and it’s easily as good as The Driver or To Live And Die In LA).

And Refn’s good taste extends to the casting. Carey Mulligan might not have a lot to do, but she looks believably vulnerable; Albert Brooks proves that actors more familiar with comedy can often turn on their menacing side to great effect (it’s he who gets to stick a fork in a guy’s face), while Ron Perlman, well, as usual Ron Perlman just has to turn up, really.

And then there’s Ryan Gosling. Starmaking roles are as rare as actual stars these days, but this just might be one. Gosling pushes the strong, silent (exceptionally pretty) type almost, but only almost, to parody. Toothpick permanently wedged between his teeth (an obvious nod to Clint Eastwood’s ’60s cheroot, and indeed, the ‘no-name hero’ and vengeance fantasy plot reinforce the feeling that this might be as much Western as thriller), he channels the glacially imperturbable attitude of Steve McQueen. He even manages to make what looks like a quilted jacket sporting a yellow scorpion emblazoned on the back — a nod either to Kenneth Anger’s cult 1964 short Scorpio Rising or the fable of The Scorpion And The Frog, depending on who you believe — look like something you might want to check out on your next visit to Topman. An actor hasn’t looked this cool in rubbish duds since Brad Pitt in that teapot dressing-gown in Fight Club. But Drive’s primary pleasure is its astonishingly realised retro style: it’s as if someone distilled a tincture of the ’80s, all cocaine attitude and Giorgio Moroder, and mainlined it into something like the present. Top Gear, then.

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Crime drama is exciting, well-made, and shockingly violent.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

"The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry"

The main character leads a life of crime, and his

This movie starts off slowly and quietly, but soon

Two or three topless women are on view for a long

The main character doesn't swear, but other charac

Some products appear or are mentioned as backgroun

The main character doesn't drink or smoke, but sup

Positive Messages

"The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry" seems to the best way to describe the movie's message, such that it is, and it's not very hopeful. The main character upsets his stripped-down, carefully planned life and opens his heart just a bit but finds that it results in nothing but pain and violence.

Positive Role Models

The main character leads a life of crime, and his only good deed involves more crime. He also falls in love with a married woman, and all of his actions result in violence.

Violence & Scariness

This movie starts off slowly and quietly, but soon there are astonishing amounts of bloody, gory, shocking violence. A woman's head is blown off with a shotgun. The main character beats up a man and stomps on his head until it squashes like a pumpkin. He slaps and threatens a woman. He also threatens a man with a claw hammer and a bullet. Also slicing and stabbing, shooting, murders, and characters beaten up and bloodied. A small boy isn't exactly shown to be in danger, but in one scene, he displays a bullet that some bad guys have given him as a warning.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Two or three topless women are on view for a long time during a nightclub scene. The main characters kiss, even though the woman is already married. Some minor flirting and/or innuendo.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

The main character doesn't swear, but other characters do frequently, using words like "f--k," "s--t," "p---y," "a--hole," "hell," and more. Characters also use the middle finger gesture and racial slurs like "chink" and "kike."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Some products appear or are mentioned as background. A Coca-Cola sign is shown more than once in a pizza parlor. A scene takes place at a Denny's restaurant, and the name of the character's car, a Chevy Impala, is mentioned several times over a police scanner.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

The main character doesn't drink or smoke, but supporting characters are occasionally seen smoking cigarettes or drinking socially. One key character mentions several types of drugs -- offering them to the main character -- but they're never shown.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this superbly made crime drama (which won the prestigious Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival) starts off quietly but eventually contains shocking amounts of violence, including a woman's head getting blown apart by a shotgun blast and the main character stomping a man's head until it squashes like a pumpkin. Language is also very strong, with multiple uses of "f--k," "s--t," and "p---y." Several women are topless in one long scene, and the two main characters have a romantic relationship even though she's already married. The main character is a criminal without many redeeming qualities, but he's still fascinating. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

Parents say (17)
Kids say (55)

Based on 17 parent reviews

What's the Story?

The "driver" ( Ryan Gosling ) drives stunt cars for the movies by day -- and by night he hires out his services for criminals who need getaway cars. He works with hard-luck-but-cheerful mechanic Shannon ( Bryan Cranston ) on both jobs. He's incredibly skilled, lives a quiet, simple, Zen-like life, and has all his bases covered -- until he meets his pretty neighbor, Irene ( Carey Mulligan ), and her young son, Benicio (Kaden Leos). When Irene's husband is released from prison, the driver reluctantly agrees to help him on a job that will get him out of debt and out of trouble. But everything goes wrong, and the fallout leads back to a pair of sinister thugs ( Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman ). Can the driver steer a way out of this mess?

Is It Any Good?

Danish-born director Nicolas Winding Refn isn't exactly a household name, but he might be after DRIVE; he might also elicit comparisons to Quentin Tarantino , which would be entirely deserved. Drive is steeped in movies, especially moody 1980s films by Ridley Scott , Michael Mann , and William Friedkin , as well as any genre films about stoic, secretive heroes -- but at the same time it feels like something new. Its style prevails over its substance, but what style!

But that's not meant to disparage the film's substance; clearly Refn adores actors, and he finds many tiny moments of warmth, adoration, and humor within the film's steely surface. In one impeccably framed scene, the driver and the girl merely smile at one another, hinting at untold depths. Every actor delivers his or her best work, especially the colorful villains and sidekicks. Only the movie's extreme, shocking violence could get in the way of total adoration for this sublime piece of genre work.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the impact of the movie's extreme violence . How does it compare to what you see in horror movies? Which is more upsetting? Why?

Is the main character a "hero"? Are viewers meant to find him sympathetic even though he's a criminal? What makes "bad guy" characters compelling?

What is the movie's attitude toward women? What are the female characters like? Are they three-dimensional?

Is the little boy in this movie ever in true danger, or is the danger only suggested? What's the difference?

Movie Details

In theaters : September 16, 2011
On DVD or streaming : January 30, 2012
Cast : Bryan Cranston , Carey Mulligan , Ryan Gosling
Director : Nicolas Winding Refn
Inclusion Information : Female actors
Studio : FilmDistrict
Genre : Drama
Run time : 100 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : strong brutal bloody violence, language and some nudity
Last updated : April 22, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Drive Review

Drive will get people in the seats because of Ryan Gosling, but it won’t be for everyone. It’s a slow-burn movie that’s spliced with scenes of jarring violence that will turn off some. Plus, Ryan Gosling alone won’t be enough for others to like this film, as his performance is unnervingly calm throughout. Until the violent moments, that is.

A lot of critics love director Nicolas Winding Refn ( Bronson , Valhalla Rising ). He does cinematically interesting things, and all of his films are long and slow in their narrative, with interludes of gory violence that are supposed to break up the monotony. You’ll see a lot of moments where characters stare off into space at nothing with what looks like deep contemplation on their faces. Sometimes it will be a warranted introspection, but usually not.

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Refn’s critical acclaim will generate a lot of very positive reviews of Drive , and the film is already earning rave reviews from the festival circuit. There might not be much of a mainstream audience for this movie, but there will be a strong audience for it.

On the road again…

Drive is based off a book of the same name by James Sallis, and if you’re interested in trivia, you might like knowing that Drive is Refn’s first movie based off of a novel, and with a script that wasn’t written by him.

It follows Ryan Gosling as the aptly named Driver, a Hollywood stunt-driver and mechanic working for Shannon (Bryan Cranston), the a middle man who gets him jobs as a wheelman for criminals. You might hear some comparisons between Gosling’s Driver and Jason Statham’s Frank Martin from The Transporter series, and while the plots are very loosely similar and the characters both have “rules,” these movies are not alike. Don’t listen to someone who compares this film to The Transporter . Ever.

The crime goes badly, and Driver has a hit put out on him by Nino — played by a greasy Ron Perlman — who is partners with smooth crime boss Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks). In response, Driver goes on a series of revenge hits of his own — revenge hits that are disgustingly violent. Trust me, there’s a moment in an elevator and another in an Italian restaurant run by Perlman that will make you cringe.

Supporting roles make the movie

Ostensibly, this film is about Gosling’s Driver and his relationship with Irene. The problem with this is that Gosling is infuriatingly calm. He rarely shows emotion and has a lot of scenes where he just seems to be staring off into space. It bothered me, but I know that it won’t annoy everyone. His performance does add contrast when he starts his revenge journey.

Irene mostly disappears in the third act, which almost makes the whole point of Driver killing people a waste of time and human lives. Still, her presence is barely felt in the first two acts, and she is mostly a blank to begin with. Refn is a decent director of men, but the women in his roles (there aren’t any really in Valhalla Rising and only a few in Bronson ) seem to drift in and out his movies as excuses for plot movement, not roles with depth or humanity.

Albert Brooks is the star, though. He really chews into the role of Bernie Rose. Even when he speaks in a friendly, genteel manner, there is a layer of menace under his voice. Despite that, you think he’s kind of the hands-off mob boss who doesn’t get his hands dirty. In the third act, he does get down in the muck, and it’s glorious and terrifying to witness. I would honestly recommend this movie on Brooks’ performance alone.

Drive moves between long calms and short, extreme moments of violence that are either gritty or very artistic. It is a Nicolas Wending Refn movie in tone and view. The problem is that the violence and the supporting characters overshadow the main relationship between Irene and Driver. I’ve harped on it this whole review, but I firmly believe that the violence and the way it’s employed in this movie will push some audiences away. This doesn’t mean that there won’t be people who don’t mind the brutality, but it will be hard for some to swallow.

I liked Drive, but it’s hard to really find a particular reason why. The more I think about it, the more I’m reminded that Albert Brooks is the best part of this movie. It’s too bad he’s not the focus of the whole film. If you are on the fence and looking for a reason to check out Drive , see it for Brooks’ performance. It is some rich acting from the normally comedic actor.

[Drive is rated R, with a running time of 100 minutes]

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Not Okay tells you exactly what kind of a film it is before it even begins. The new film from writer-director Quinn Shephard, which charts one vapid influencer's rise to fame and subsequent social media cancellation, opens with an explicit warning that it contains, among other things, “an unlikable female protagonist.” It’s a message that comes across not only as a winking nod to the ways in which a term such as “likable” has been weaponized against women over the years but also a vow that Not Okay isn't going to play it safe.

That's a promise that Shephard doesn’t fully follow through on. The film’s “unlikable” protagonist, Danni Sanders (Zoey Deutch), is narcissistic and coldly opportunistic in all the ways that one expects an ambitious social media influencer to be, and Shephard spends much of Not Okay’s first act establishing Danni’s obsessive desire to be noticed. When her boss (played by Negin Farsad), an editor at a culture website named “Depravity,” scolds Danni for writing in one piece that she believes she lost out on an integral generational bonding moment by missing 9/11, Not Okay makes it explicitly clear what kind of protagonist we’re dealing with. An unlikable female protagonist who is too likable But before Not Okay gets to that, it follows up its attention-grabbing opening message with a montage that throws viewers right into the deep end of the viral hate campaign that eventually turns Danni’s life upside down. The montage follows Danni as she sobs while obsessively consuming all the various tweets, articles, and YouTube videos that have been made by those who are so anxious to paint her as the world's worst person. Whether it’s meant to or not, the sequence creates an immediate empathy for Danni and, even more importantly, clues you into the loneliness that is at the heart of all of her attempts to gain viral fame.

If you’ve ever plugged the word “Bourne” into the Netflix search bar, watched at least two minutes of Extraction, or Googled “Avengers: Endgame streaming,” The Gray Man owes you a special-thanks credit. Netflix’s charmless new action movie is a veritable tag cloud of keywords adapted into a lump of generic subscriber bait. Every one of its creative decisions, from the casting to the rat-a-tat snark of the dialogue to the stock on-the-run premise, might have been made by someone in the metrics department. The only way The Gray Man could feel more algorithmic is if it starred Ryan Reynolds, the current king of the content farm.

In fact, the title role is occupied by a different handsome, blonde Ryan in his early 40s. That would be Ryan Gosling, who's usually more discerning about which projects to prune from the offer stack. Codenamed Sierra Six, perhaps in the hope that audiences might mistake this for a spinoff of Netflix’s 6 Underground, Court Gentry (Gosling) is a convict who agrees to become a weapon of the state in exchange for a commuted sentence. “You’d be part of an elite unit,” sweet talks his CIA recruiter (Billy Bob Thornton), banking on Suicide Squad having never made the cut for cell-block movie night.

Mashing up genres can be hit-or-miss in Hollywood. When it works out, the film can be a fascinating blend of familiar tropes and subversive spins on the expected. When it doesn't, it can be a frustrating jumble of elements that don't play well together.

Fortunately, Hulu's The Princess falls into the former category, delivering a fast-paced action film filtered through a familiar fairytale premise, peppered with enough clever twists to provide plenty of surprises.

Drive—movie review

Drive arrives with its credentials of cool all set: a hot star (Ryan Gosling) in the lead, a smart supporting cast, a Best Director prize from the Cannes Film Festival, and a stylish retro-noir look. These assets may hoodwink some audiences who don’t stop—or want to stop—to explore the emptiness of the movie or its incoherency.

Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn has chosen style over substance. The screenplay (by Hossein Amini, from a novel by James Sallis) would have you believe that its main character is existential when it seems to me he’s—

—just not very bright. In an early, expository scene, Gosling explains to a customer on the phone how he works as a getaway driver and what he requires. After that, for reasons unexplained, he seems incapable of uttering a complete sentence.

He is also presented as an innocent—after we see him ferrying a pair of burglars from the scene of their crime. Later, he displays a daunting, and also unexplained, skillset with a variety of deadly weapons. Don’t ask for logic when a movie looks good.

Even extreme, painfully graphic violence is OK, it would seem, if it’s done so operatically that it matches the film’s stylized approach. So be it.

Where others see artistry, I see pretentiousness: in Gosling’s blank stares and the staging of scenes in appropriately seamy L.A. locations. The costarring cast is strong, including Carey Mulligan, Ron Perlman, Bryan Cranston, Christina Hendricks, Oscar Isaac, and the always-welcome Albert Brooks as a well-spoken, well-heeled goon.

Vintage film noirs didn’t have to work so hard to get their points across, visually and verbally. For me, Drive is all attitude, punctuated by unpleasant bursts of violence. If that’s what passes for cutting-edge filmmaking, or storytelling, we’re in trouble.

FURIOSA: A MAD MAX STORY

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Drive 4K SteelBook Release Date Set for Ryan Gosling Movie

The 2011 Ryan Gosling -starring Drive is coming to Blu-ray on August 27. The action drama, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn , will receive a Steelbook collection complete with a slew of special features.

Sony (via Collider ) announced that the 2011 thriller is coming to 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray with plenty of bonus materials, including an all-new featurette. The 4K Ultra HD Disc will contain an English Dolby Atmos + English 5.1 feature, a theatrical trailer, and a “Back in the Driver’s Seat” featurette with interviews with the movie’s cast and crew.

Moreover, Blu-ray Disc features a “Drive Without a Driver” interview with the director, along with four featurettes: “I Drive: The Driver,” “Driver and Irene: The Relationship,” “Under the Hood: Story,” and “Cut to the Chase: Stunts.”

What is Drive about?

Based on the novel of the same name by James Sallis, Drive follows Gosling’s The Driver, a Hollywood stunt driver by day with a secret job by night: a getaway driver for criminals.

Sony’s synopsis for Driver reads: “Though a loner by nature, “Driver” can’t help falling in love with his beautiful neighbor Irene, a young mother dragged into a dangerous underworld by the return of her ex-convict husband. After a heist goes wrong, Driver finds himself driving defense for the girl he loves, tailgated by a syndicate of deadly serious criminals. Soon, he realizes the gangsters are after more than the bag of cash and is forced to shift gears and go on the offense.”

Driver also starred Carey Mulligan as Irene Gabriel, Bryan Cranston as Shannon, Oscar Isaac as Standard Gabriel, Ron Perlman as Izzy, Albert Brooks as Bernie Rose, Christina Hendricks as Blanche, James Biberi as Chris Cook, Russ Tamblyn as Doc, and Kaden Leos as Benicio Gabriel.

Refn directed the feature based on a screenplay by Hossein Amini.

The post Drive 4K SteelBook Release Date Set for Ryan Gosling Movie appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More .

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'Great Fun? Perhaps Not': Stephen King Weighs in on Ryan Gosling's Recent Flop Film

Stephen King is an awarded author with a knack for terrifying stories, but he is also using his huge platform to share movie and TV recommendations. His most recent comment was on Ryan Gosling's latest film, The Fall Guy .

On his X account, Stephen King recently reshared a post addressing The Fall Guy , adding his own commentary to it. The film comes from Bullet Train director David Leitch, and it has been very well received since its premiere at the SXSW Festival and release in theaters. Starring Gosling and Emily Blunt, the enthusiasm for their chemistry and good reviews didn't translate into movie tickets, and the film had a disappointing performance at the box office.

'I Should Have to Say No More': Stephen King Hypes Up Prime Video's Record-Breaking Film

A user addressed the film's disappointing run: "Audiences may not have flocked to it in theatres but The Fall Guy is great fun." However, King revealed he wasn't that impressed with Ryan Gosling's latest release. " Yes, definitely fun, but great fun? Perhaps not ," the author wrote, disagreeing with the general audience .

The film currently holds a Certified Fresh rating of 81% from the critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and 87% from the audience, indicating that moviegoers did enjoy the film. With $74.1 million domestically, The Fall Guy fell flat at the international box office, adding only $71.7 million from foreign markets to a total of $145.9 million (via The Numbers ). That might not look like a bad gross, but the film's budget was estimated at around $125 million, and it has barely covered its initial budget, let alone marketing costs and distribution fees, as the rule of thumb for Hollywood films is usually earning double the production costs to break even.

'Thank God Misery Came Out First': Stephen King Pens Detailed Review of Netflix Hit Limited Series

Fans disagreed with stephen king's comments.

Stephen King has weighed in on many recent film and TV series online, including the Jake Gyllenhaal-led Road House, the Netflix hit limited series Baby Reindeer , and the sci-fi show 3 Body Problem , among others. Most of them were popular and the public agreed with King's praise, but not the same can be said about his view on The Fall Guy , which many praised for its appreciation for stunts .

Fans flooded to social media to disagree with his views. @Trizzydri186 noted, "This the same guy who said The Flash was great," with a laughing and clown emojis. @B00TS replied to the comment with a very meta reference, noting, "This is the same guy who didn't like Kubrick's The Shining. " Another person commented, "If Stephen King isn't a fan it must be good," with another reasoning, "Seriously, does anyone give issue what Stephen King thinks about an action movie? That isn't even his genre or specialty."

The Fall Guy is still out in theaters, but it's also available on digital platforms.

Source: X , The Numbers

Director David Leitch

Release Date May 3, 2024

Cast Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emily Blunt, Hannah Waddingham, Ryan Gosling

Writers Drew Pearce, Glen A. Larson

Rating PG-13

Runtime 114 minutes

Main Genre Action

'Great Fun? Perhaps Not': Stephen King Weighs in on Ryan Gosling's Recent Flop Film

One Of Ryan Gosling's Best Films On Rotten Tomatoes Is One Of His Least-Seen

"The Fall Guy" might have kicked off the summer box office season in disappointing fashion, but there's no doubt Ryan Gosling's latest outing is a spectacular time at the movies. Regardless of the film's commercial performance, Gosling and his co-star, Emily Blunt, delivered on the chemistry and charisma, making for a positive critical response that the pair, and director David Leitch, can be proud of.

But then, Gosling never really fails to bring the charisma. On his journey from child actor to movie star, his wry charm has never wavered. Now, his role as Ken in 2023's mega-hit "Barbie" has seemingly endeared him to a whole new generation, culminating in his standout performance of "I'm Just Ken" at the 2024 Oscars . But it's arguably when balancing his playful, roguish side with his more serious dramatic sensibilities that Gosling is at his best.

Fans of the actor might well cite his more muted performance in "Drive" as a career highlight. His portrayal of the taciturn driver in Nicolas Winding Refn's 2011 action drama also has a lot in common with his somber turn as K in Denis Villeneuve's excellent 2017 effort "Blade Runner 2049." Both are fine examples of Gosling's work, and excellent case studies of a more tastefully restrained performance from the man. But neither represent that fine balancing act I alluded to earlier, whereby the now-43-year-old somehow manages to project his droll charm while simultaneously conveying an affecting sincerity. No, the quintessential example of this came with what is, in my opinion, his best film: 2006's "Half Nelson" — and Rotten Tomatoes almost agrees with me.

Half Nelson is an under-seen gem

In "Half Nelson," a 26-year-old Ryan Gosling plays Dan Dunne, a middle school teacher who clearly has a gift for connecting with his students but whose life is falling apart outside the classroom. After what was an extremely tough breakup for Dunne, he fell into drug use and spends most of his free time either scoring increasingly serious substances, languishing in his bare-bones Brooklyn apartment, or slipping into a drug-induced stupor. After he's discovered in the midst of one such stupor by his own student, Drey (Shareeka Epps), he and the youngster form a bond that has the potential to help bring Dunne out of his addiction.

Throughout "Half Nelson," Gosling uses his effortless charisma in a more subtle way than we're used to, helping tell a truly affecting story about substance addiction and the connections human beings can form across social and cultural boundaries. When Dunne is interacting with his students, or on a date, he's coolly beguiling. When he's in the depths of his loneliness, he's palpably tortured. All of it is believable.

But Gosling isn't the only reason to see "Half Nelson." Shareeka Epps is outstanding as Drey, especially considering this was her first film role and she was just 16 at the time of filming. Since "Half Nelson" we haven't seen much of Epps — though she has appeared in odd roles here and there. But that's truly a shame, because her performance here is so elegantly composed that it's genuinely unbelievable that this was her first major role in film or TV.

With all this in mind, despite the fact that you don't hear "Half Nelson" mentioned much, it's nice to see the film ranked as Gosling's second-best movie of all time on Rotten Tomatoes .

Rotten Tomatoes says Half Nelson is Gosling's second-best

If you check Rotten Tomatoes, you'll see that "Drive" is, indeed, ranked as Ryan Gosling's best film, with a 93% critic score and a 79% audience score. But right behind that is "Half Nelson" which has a 91% critic score and actually managed to beat out "Drive" with its 82% audience score.

Now, we should all be wary of Rotten Tomatoes, which has previously blessed us with the revelation that there are only two perfect sci-fi films , and that Sean Connery's best film is apparently "Darby O'Gill and the Little People." But to see "Half Nelson" almost in the top spot when it comes to the site's ranking of Gosling flicks restores just a smidge of my faith in our collective ability to know a good movie when we see one.

The most surprising part of all this is that I rarely hear "Half Nelson" mentioned, despite the fact that Gosling was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. It's not currently available on Blu-ray in the U.S., which I understand isn't exactly a measure of anything in 2024. But this movie came out in 2006 when Blu-ray was very much still a thing, and yet it was never given the HD treatment in the states, only abroad. Those of us who still like to track down our favorites on physical media have to make do with the "Half Nelson" DVD. People who are, y'know, normal, can stream the film on Peacock.

So, if you're yet to see this lesser-known Gosling gem, take as a sign this instance of Rotten Tomatoes doing something right for a change.

Cast & crew
User reviews

The Fall Guy

A down-and-out stuntman must find the missing star of his ex-girlfriend's blockbuster film. A down-and-out stuntman must find the missing star of his ex-girlfriend's blockbuster film. A down-and-out stuntman must find the missing star of his ex-girlfriend's blockbuster film.

David Leitch
Glen A. Larson
Drew Pearce
Ryan Gosling
Emily Blunt
Aaron Taylor-Johnson
818 User reviews
264 Critic reviews
73 Metascore
1 nomination

Colt Seavers

Jody Moreno

Venti Kushner

Birdie the PA
(as a different name)
Rush McCabe
Metalstorm AD

Metalstorm Writer (Darla)

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Did you know

Trivia Ryan Gosling has a fear of heights, but still did the 150-foot fall at the beginning of the movie.
Goofs The final stunt shows the main character falling out of a helicopter holding a ruggedized digital storage device used in digital movie production. While he is falling through the air you can see that he is not holding anything. When he lands on the air cushion he is holding the storage device again.

[from trailer]

Colt Seavers : [preparing his dog, sitting next to him in a truck, for a jump] I'll buy you a drink after this is over! Engage your core!

[cut to Colt icing his fist in a frozen margarita with the dog sitting next to him lapping up a drink in a beer glass]

Crazy credits During the closing credits the left side of the screen is dedicated to stunts done for the movie. And then an additional scene, that includes cameos.
Connections Featured in Amanda the Jedi Show: The BEST and Weirdest Movies you (mostly) Haven't Seen Yet | Love Lies Bleeding (2024)
Soundtracks I Was Made for Lovin' You Written by Desmond Child , Vini Poncia (as Vincent Poncia), Paul Stanley Performed by KISS Courtesy of Island Records Under license from Universal Music Enterprises

User reviews 818

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May 4, 2024
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May 3, 2024 (United States)
United States
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$130,000,000 (estimated)
$80,281,525
$27,747,035
May 5, 2024
$158,002,525

Technical specs

Runtime 2 hours 6 minutes
Dolby Atmos
IMAX 6-Track

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The Big Picture

Only God Forgives is a commentary on cyclical violence with realistic violence and surreal moments.
Nicolas Winding Refn critiques white ignorance and tradition in a timeless, metaphorical revenge drama.
Ryan Gosling's sinister role and Tom Burke's talented performance add depth to Refn's challenging film.

While his early work on the prison drama Bronson and the Viking epic Valhalla Rising were both met with critical praise, director Nicolas Winding Refn proved himself to a significant audience with his 2011 heist thriller Drive . Between its synthetic musical score, eye-popping visuals, and surprisingly emotional performances, Drive solidified itself as a modern classic within the neo-noir genre. However, those expecting Refn to repeat Drive’ s success may have been disappointed to find that his follow-up project was far more experimental. Refn’s revenge thriller Only God Forgives attracted immediate controversy for its arthouse qualities and brutal violence.

Only God Forgives marked a reunion for Refn with Ryan Gosling in another dark, malevolent role in which he had very little dialogue. The film also served as a breakout for Tom Burke , who would later be cast alongside Anya Taylor-Joy in George Miller ’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga . Only God Forgives may have been intentionally polarizing, and is certainly not for the faint of heart. However, the excellent performances and interesting commentary on cyclical violence makes Only God Forgives worth considering as an arthouse crime thriller.

Only God Forgives

Julian, who runs a Thai boxing club as a front organization for his family's drug smuggling operation, is forced by his mother Crystal to find and kill the individual responsible for his brother's recent death.

What Is 'Only God Forgives' About?

Set within the criminal underworld of Bangkok, Only God Forgives centers on two American brothers who run a brutal underground boxing ring that secretly works in coalition with the city’s illicit drug ring. While neither Julian (Ryan Gosling) nor Billy (Tom Burke) seem interested in upsetting the criminal infrastructure of the city, that doesn’t mean that they don’t have lurid pleasures. Billy sparks conflict when he attempts to sleep with an underage prostitute, only to be brutally killed by the vigilante police detective Chang ( Vithaya Pansringarm ), who goes by the moniker “Angel of Vengeance.” Infuriated that her family’s honor has been disrespected, Julian’s mother Crystal Thompson ( Kristin Scott Thomas ) orders him to achieve revenge by whatever means necessary.

Refn is the real star of the film, as Only God Forgives ’ characters are intentionally one note and detached. In order to show how truly depraved their actions are , Refn strips away any specificities to the characters of Julian and Billy that could in any way endear them to the audience. The moment of violence that is committed at the beginning of the film is shocking, but not because Billy is in any way a likable character; Refn seeks to criticize violence itself, as opposed to bludgeoning the viewer with an emotional moment. Gosling and Burke succeed in making the characters as bland and straightforward as possible. They rarely give any subtle physical movements that would in any way indicate character progression.

Although the violence Refn incorporates is quite realistic, Only God Forgives includes many moments of surrealism. The film is soaked in neon lighting that feels closer to a dream than a slice of reality; the moody atmosphere and lack of cultural details only further indicates the dispassion at the heart of the narrative. The fight scenes themselves are presented without significant foreshadowing, as if Refn is criticizing the banal manner in which violence is committed. A surprising musical performance by Chang in the film’s closing credits seems to confirm that Only God Forgives shouldn’t be compared to traditional narrative structures.

Before 'Furiosa,' Watch Tom Burke in BBC’s Swashbuckling Period Drama

Tom Burke’s portrayal of this literary character is highly unique compared to other adaptations.

'Only God Forgives' Is a Deeply Metaphorical Revenge Drama

Although the lack of significant characterization may be a barrier for some viewers, Only God Forgives serves as a commentary on the cyclical nature of violence. Julian’s revenge mission isn’t one that he has any personal investment in, as it’s seen as an obligation above anything else. Even when discussing her son’s death, Crystal acts as if the crime was a personal insult to her stature, and never shows any signs of grief. As muted as the film’s dialogue is, Only God Forgives truly gets a burst of energy whenever Thomas is onscreen; her malevolent, nasty characterization of Crystal serves as the “Lady Macbeth” of the story.

There’s a timelessness to Refn’s commentary on guilt and bloodlust, but Only God Forgives also serves as a sharp critique of white ignorance. It’s evident that Julian and Billy operate in Bangkok with no knowledge of the city’s vast cultural history, and have no respect for the traditions that have been put in place. Chang’s role in the story isn’t simply to serve the law, but to restore the traditional values that have been threatened by the western visitors. Despite his seemingly noble intentions, Chang is depicted as a terrifying force of nature who is absolutely unrelenting; Pansringarm depicts one of the most memorable screen villains in recent memory.

'Only God Forgives' Was Challenging for Tom Burke and Ryan Gosling

Although he would later earn acclaim for his more comedic work in Barbie and The Nice Guys , Gosling shows a sinister side in Only God Forgives that ranks as one of his most underrated performances. Julian is a character who is almost childlike in his fealty to both his mother and brother; Gosling shows how he is ultimately ignorant of the consequences of his actions. There’s a precision within the fight scenes due to Gosling’s terrific stunt work. As brutal as the film gets, there’s a beauty to seeing how finely crafted the hand-to-hand combat scenes are.

Despite the brevity of his performance, Burke signified he was a talented character actor with his brief role in Only God Forgives . Billy’s actions serve as the inciting incident of the story, and have significant ramifications as the story gets more obtuse. Burke certainly fit within the parameters of Refn’s intentions, indicating that he could fit the parameters of a director’s vision. This attribute served him well when he was cast as an abusive partner in Joanna Hogg ’s emotional drama The Souvenir and portrayed Orson Welles in the David Fincher Netflix biopic Mank .

Only God Forgives is available to stream on Prime Video in the U.S.

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The Best Movies of 2024 So Far

Summer is here ! In the old days, that would mean heading to the multiplex to load up on big summer blockbusters . In the shakier movie climate we now find ourselves in, it could simply mean more of the same: more staying at home, in the air-conditioning, watching whatever’s streaming . But midyear is also a good time to reflect on the releases of the previous few months, and to catch up on some you may have missed. Following are seven of the best, harbingers of hope for the remaining months of this moviegoing year.

The Fall Guy

This action-comedy directed by longtime stunt performer David Leitch may have “underperformend,” in the parlance of box-office pundits, but that’s no reason to dismiss it. The Fall Guy is an ode to the stuntpeople who drive cars at death-defying speeds, fall from dizzying heights, and get set on fire, all in the service of the fantasy of movies. But its biggest selling point is its duo of leads, Ryan Gosling as a once-swaggering stuntman struggling to make a comeback, and Emily Blunt as the fledgling director he’s trying to romance. Together, these two are the opposite of a car wreck, a romantic-comedy pairing whose fizziness keeps even this sometimes-plodding movie afloat. Charm is in short supply at the movies these days, but Gosling and Blunt give us every reason to believe in it.

Read more: Watch the Classic Stunts That Inspired the Action in The Fall Guy

Robot Dreams

In this gorgeous animated parable of love and friendship set in 1980s New York, a lonely dog orders up a mail-order robot friend, and his life is changed. The two stroll through the city, and though Dog has seen it all, Robot takes in every sight with fresh eyes. This fantasy New York is populated by anthropomorphized animals—yaks in business suits, gazelles in dresses and lipstick—and for Dog and Robot, everything, from an octopus subway drummer to a morning of roller-dancing in Central Park, is a source of delight. But a day at the beach spells bad news for a being made mostly of metal, and Dog and Robot are tragically separated; as they try to find their way back to one another, their story shifts into a complex reflection on the nature of goodbyes and new beginnings. In adapting Sara Varon’s graphic novel of the same name, Spanish director Pablo Berger has made a movie that feels, in the best way, like the last day of summer: radiant, bittersweet, redolent of memories in the making.

In a career spanning some 40 years, French filmmaker Luc Besson has specialized in fantastic flights of fantasy and shockeroo violence. But his DogMan is an exceedingly tender film, and a surprising one. Caleb Landry Jones’ Douglas is a wounded human being, a survivor of childhood abuse, who is mostly in a wheelchair and finds solace in living with his community of dogs. But his life isn’t joyless: he takes pleasure in the companionship of his four-legged friends, and in his one-night-a-week job as a performer in a drag bar. When he runs afoul of thugs, his dogs protect him: rest assured that nothing bad happens to the canine characters in this film, but evil humans aren’t so fortunate. This is the perfect movie for those days you’re convinced that dogs are better than people—even if that’s every day.

In Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera, set in the Tuscan countryside circa 1980, Josh O’Connor plays Arthur, an Englishman caught in an Italian reverie. He’s a grave robber in love with relics of the past, but he’s also mourning a lost love, a woman named Beniamina, who has disappeared from his life under circumstances that are never explained. Beniamina’s aged and slightly addled mother, Flora (played, wonderfully, by Isabella Rossellini), insists she’ll be coming back, but Arthur knows better; he’s tormented by visions of his inamorata, longing to join her, wherever she is. Rohrwacher is an assured filmmaker, and she steers this dream of a movie as steadily as a kite in a stiff breeze. It’s the kind of movie you wake up from, as opposed to one you merely watch.

Read the full review

Seven-year-old Sol (Naíma Sentíes) is looking forward to an elaborate birthday party for her father, Tona (Mateo Garcia), to be held in her grandfather’s home. She and her mother, Lucia (Iazua Larios), have prepared a little performance, a surprise for her father, involving a rainbow clown wig and a feat of operatic lip-synching. But when she arrives at the house, the extended family, bustling about in preparation, has little time for her, and she’s told she can’t see her father. The reality is that Tona is dying of cancer, and though Sol knows he’s very ill, this is the first time she truly has to reckon with his inevitable death. That may make Tótem sound like a downer, but in the hands of director Lila Avilés, it’s not: what do grief and loss mean to children? As adults, we can’t really know, but Tótem offers a promise of light beyond the sorrow of loss, for young and old alike.

Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara

Italian director Marco Bellocchio (Fists in the Pocket, The Traitor) is 84 years old, but his movies are more vital and muscular than those of many filmmakers half his age. With Kidnapped, he tells the true story of Edgardo Mortara, a six-year-old Jewish boy who, at the behest of Pope Pius IX, was taken away from his family in 1858 Bologna and whisked off to be indoctrinated into Catholicism. His parents (played by Fausto Russo Alesi and Barbara Ronchi) try desperately to get Edgardo back, but to no avail: he has become a pawn of a zealous, anti-Semitic pope who’s clinging to his waning power. Bellocchio’s chief target is the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church, but the movie works as straightforward melodrama, too: Edgardo, played as a youngster by Enea Sala and as a young man by Leonardo Maltese, is a figure locked so tightly in a nightmare that he eventually succumbs to it. His story, in the hands of a master, is both compelling and chilling.

Glen Powell plays mild-mannered college professor Gary Johnson, a guy who earns extra money by posing as a hit man for the New Orleans Police Department: He meets with ne’er-do-wells hoping to enlist his services; when they come clean with their intent, the cops move in with the handcuffs. Gary loves this side hustle, happily donning any disguise or persona necessary to get the job done. Then he falls for Maddy (Adria Arjona), an unhappily married woman who approaches him about offing her husband. He dissuades her, and they fall in love—but that’s only the beginning of their problems. Richard Linklater directs this foxy caper with buoyant good humor. And Powell, sexy and mischievous, makes a great, casual matinee idol, whether you discover his charms on the big screen or the small one.

Read more: The Real Story of the Fake Contract Killer Behind Richard Linklater’s Hit Man

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Drive movie review & film summary (2011)
By day, he is a stunt driver for action movies. The two jobs represent no conflict for him: He drives. As played by Ryan Gosling, he is in the tradition of two iconic heroes of the 1960s: Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name and Alain Delon in "Le Samourai." He has no family, no history and seemingly few emotions.
Drive (2011)
Audience Member Ryan and his character are enchanting. The movie left me with a newfound sense of freedom. And the soundtrack slaps. Rated 4/5 Stars • Rated 4 out of 5 stars 05/29/24 Full Review ...
'Drive,' With Ryan Gosling
Drive. Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Crime, Drama. R. 1h 40m. By A. O. SCOTT. Sept. 15, 2011. A long time ago, as a young filmmaker besotted with the hard-boiled pleasures of classic Hollywood ...
Drive (2011)
Drive: Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. With Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks. A mysterious Hollywood action film stuntman gets in trouble with gangsters when he tries to help his neighbor's husband rob a pawn shop while serving as his getaway driver.
Drive Review: Ryan Gosling Film Delivers Fresh Guilty ...
Film Review: 'Drive,' Starring Ryan Gosling, Delivers Fresh Guilty-Pleasure Thrills ... Like Quentin Tarantino, Refn is an exploitation-movie junkie, so his cinematic references mirror '70s ...
A Twisty, Brutal 'Drive' For A Level-Headed Hero
Drive. Director: Nicolas Winding Refn. Genre: Crime, Action, Drama. Running Time: 100 minutes. Rated R for disturbing content and some language. But Driver down deep is one of God's Loneliest Men ...
DRIVE Movie Review
Drive movie review. Matt reviews Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive starring Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman, and Albert Brooks.
Drive Review
Ryan Gosling stars as Driver, a Hollywood stunt performer and mechanic who also moonlights as a getaway wheelman for criminals after their heists. He is a man of strict professionalism; he will ...
Drive
Ryan Gosling Driver. Carey Mulligan Irene. Bryan Cranston Shannon. Albert Brooks ... Generally Favorable Based on 43 Critic Reviews. 79. 88% Positive 38 Reviews. 12% Mixed 5 Reviews. 0% Negative ... , Bold Films, Madison Wells, Marc Platt Productions, Motel Movies, Drive Film Holdings, Oddlot Entertainment. Release Date Sep 16 , 2011. Duration ...
'Drive': Movie Review (2011)
With Ryan Gosling ably incarnating a pent-up man of few words who goes to great lengths to make one positive gesture in a rotten world, Danish wunderkind Nicolas Winding Refn has fashioned an ...
Ryan Gosling On Drive : This Is My Superhero Movie
In Drive, director Nicolas Winding Refn's (Pusher, Bronson, Valhalla Rising) neo-noir thriller in theaters this week, Ryan Gosling plays an enigmatic outsider known only as "The Driver," a Hollywood stunt jockey who moonlights as a getaway wheel man for a local crime boss. Co-starring Carey Mulligan and Albert Brooks, the film is a genre piece that evokes a long-gone era of car movies, with ...
Drive (2011 film)
Drive is a 2011 American action drama film directed by Nicolas Winding Refn.The screenplay, written by Hossein Amini, is based on James Sallis's 2005 novel of the same name.The film stars Ryan Gosling as an unnamed Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver. He quickly grows fond of his neighbor, Irene (Carey Mulligan), and her young son, Benicio.
Drive, review
Drive, review Drive, starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan, is a masterpiece of surface over depth says Sukhdev Sandhu. By Sukhdev Sandhu 30 October 2014 • 10:50am
Drive
Drive was once intended as a fast-and-furious blockbuster for Hugh Jackman. Then Gosling stepped in and met Refn. As the actor drove the director home, the radio blasted REO Speedwagon, and Refn ...
Movie Review: Drive (2011)
Movie review of Drive (2011) by The Critical Movie Critics | Ryan Gosling is a man with a past who falls in love with his married neighbor. Movie review of Drive (2011) by The Critical Movie Critics ... The Driver (Ryan Gosling) has no need for a name. He embodies his job description — a Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway ...
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Movie review: 'Drive'
By Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times Film Critic. Sept. 16, 2011 12 AM PT. "Drive" is a Los Angeles neo-noir, a neon-lit crime story made with lots of visual style. It's a film in love with ...
Drive Review
22 Sep 2011. Running Time: 100 minutes. Certificate: 18. Original Title: Drive. Alan Ladd's 1953 classic Western Shane is a tale of a man who, trying to escape his past, turns up at a homestead ...
Drive Movie Review
The "driver" (Ryan Gosling) drives stunt cars for the movies by day -- and by night he hires out his services for criminals who need getaway cars.He works with hard-luck-but-cheerful mechanic Shannon (Bryan Cranston) on both jobs.He's incredibly skilled, lives a quiet, simple, Zen-like life, and has all his bases covered -- until he meets his pretty neighbor, Irene (Carey Mulligan), and her ...
Drive (2011)
User Reviews. In Los Angeles, a mysterious driver (Ryan Gosling) is a man of few words that works as a garage mechanic for his only friend Shannon (Bryan Cranston); stuntman in Hollywood films; and driver of getaway car in heists. One day, he helps his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), whose husband is in prison, and her son Benicio (Kaden Leos ...
Drive Review: Ryan Gosling Steals the Show
Drive will get people in the seats because of Ryan Gosling, but it won't be for everyone. It's a slow-burn movie that's spliced with scenes of jarring violence that will turn off some. Plus ...
"Drive" (2011) Movie Review
Silence plays a major role in this film. Gosling has a grand total of maybe 15 minutes of speaking. He said in an interview that he enjoyed being able to play a role where it was up to the audience to make assessments and interpret motive and thought. "Drive" (2011) To that end, the silence was very well used.
Drive—movie review
6350. Drive arrives with its credentials of cool all set: a hot star (Ryan Gosling) in the lead, a smart supporting cast, a Best Director prize from the Cannes Film Festival, and a stylish retro-noir look. These assets may hoodwink some audiences who don't stop—or want to stop—to explore the emptiness of the movie or its incoherency.
Drive 4K SteelBook Release Date Set for Ryan Gosling Movie
The 2011 Ryan Gosling-starring Drive is coming to Blu-ray on August 27. The action drama, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, will receive a Steelbook collection complete with a slew of special ...
'Great Fun? Perhaps Not': Stephen King Weighs in on Ryan Gosling's
Starring Gosling and Emily Blunt, the enthusiasm for their chemistry and good reviews didn't translate into movie tickets, and the film had a disappointing performance at the box office.
Ryan Gosling's Best Films on Rotten Tomatoes Include Half-Nelson
Rotten Tomatoes says Half Nelson is Gosling's second-best. If you check Rotten Tomatoes, you'll see that "Drive" is, indeed, ranked as Ryan Gosling's best film, with a 93% critic score and a 79% ...
The Fall Guy (2024)
The Fall Guy: Directed by David Leitch. With Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Hannah Waddingham. A down-and-out stuntman must find the missing star of his ex-girlfriend's blockbuster film.
Ryan Gosling & 'Furiosa's Tom Burke Are Brothers in This ...
Drama. Thriller. Julian, who runs a Thai boxing club as a front organization for his family's drug smuggling operation, is forced by his mother Crystal to find and kill the individual responsible ...
Best Movies of 2024 So Far
LA CHIMERA - Official HD Trailer (2024) - A film by Alice Rohrwacher. In Alice Rohrwacher's La Chimera, set in the Tuscan countryside circa 1980, Josh O'Connor plays Arthur, an Englishman ...

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