Drive – 4/5 stars
I don’t sit in while you’re running it down. I don’t carry a gun. I drive.
A Hollywood stunt driver by day and a criminal getaway driver by night, Driver (Ryan Gosling) lives a life of solitude. He doesn’t really care about anything until he meets his neighbor Irene and her son, Benicio. But when Irene’s husband is released from prison and has gangsters threatening him and his family, Driver must go to extreme measures to protect them.
After my first viewing, I’m not quite sure what to think. Drive seems like one of those films where the more you watch it, the more it grows on you and you can appreciate it. It was definitely interesting and not at all where I thought the story was going to go.
Drive was directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and was based on the novel with the same name by James Sallis. I thought it had a fantastic cast with Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Oscar Isaac, and Ron Pearlman. I also thought it had a great soundtrack with a kind of retro-styled vibe. I’ve had the main song, A Real Hero by College & Electronic Youth, stuck in my head for a few days now.
Gosling played an interesting character who showed almost no emotion the entire movie. We never actually learn the character’s name, but I’m pretty sure he was a psychopath because of his lack of emotion and the fact he never seemed afraid of anything. We never really learned about his past, although we could probably assume he did something bad and moved to LA to start fresh. But I guess the point of the movie was that the protagonist never really felt anything until he met Irene and her son, Benicio. As stated in the song A Real Hero by College & Electronic Youth, they made him feel like a real human being. And, as they got involved and threatened by the criminals Standard owed, Driver took care of them. He killed all the bad guys, protected Irene and her son from the danger, and even left all the money, becoming the hero he wanted to be. This can be debatable how killing off a bunch of gangsters John Wick-style makes you the hero, but to him, I think it did. He finally found something he cared about and saved them from danger, like a hero would.
The Driver in this film, characterized by his iconic white scorpion jacket, the jacket he wears when committing crime. The scorpion almost seemed like his nighttime, alternative persona in that, when you mess with him, you get stung. In the fable of the scorpion and the frog, Driver may have been the scorpion striking back at the gangsters and doing what was his nature. An alternative theory was that he was the frog, trying to get out of crime, and the scorpion, the life of crime, was always dragging him back in. With this theory of him being the frog, the scorpion is literally on his back, like in the fable. I watched a few film analysis on Drive just because this was so interesting to consider. I think either could be the case, but leave a comment down below on which you think is true!
Overall, I would rate Drive 4/5 stars. It was a much deeper film than I imagined it would be and I enjoyed the subtlety of it. I had originally rated it as 3 ½ / 5 stars, but given some time to think about it and watch some analysis on it, I decided to go with 4/5 stars.I haven’t watched as much movie analysis on a film since Fight Club, just because it was so interesting to consider the different meanings. I’d recommend checking it out since it’s currently available to stream on Netflix.