Shut Up And Drive

USA-Thriller, Action/Adventure, Drama-English-2010-Director: Nicolas Winding Refn-Cast: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, Ron Perlman, Oscar Isaac, Christina Hendricks

 “Drive”

            The time had finally come for the necessary action packed, high adrenaline rush, bloody, sweet romance, 80’s music inspired flick. I was in the Lumiere theater for the premiere of this film and I sat back to watch this Hollywood-produced action drama and somehow knew I was home. At the very moment that hot pink font for the opening credits appeared on that screen with “Hero” song in the background, well I knew I was for going for a Drive. I was going on a journey with this film in the best seat in the house and that was in the passenger’s seat next to Ryan Gosling. He plays a nameless stunt driver who acts in movies by day and assists as the getaway driver for robbers by night. He carries the cool factor of Elvis Presley and John Travolta from “Grease” where all I was waiting for was for Ryan to pop his collar to his silk driving jacket and slick back his blonde hair. Ryan’s character walked with a swagger of a cowboy in a western and spoke a few words that were enough to provide that sexy macho mystique.  At that point alone, I could see that this was a film to make the one and only Ryan Gosling look good and having his character fall in love somewhere along the way is usually a safe bet.

The newly Cannes awarded best director Nicolas Winding Refn staged this film to capture the best assets of his main characters and to really give the people what they wanted. I enjoyed every minute of this film as Refn played with his audience and gave the best of both worlds with his play on Tarentino styled blood gore scenes juxtaposed with a warm angelic romance between Ryan’s character and the talented Carey Mulligan. I watched as Carey Mulligan held her own on screen playing nonetheless, the love interest of Ryan’s character known as Irene. The innocent and sweet look of her character worked for that bad guy meets good girl aspect. It felt that the audience was watching Ryan’s famed loveable character Noah return from The Notebook into part two with Drive. We were seeing Ryan’s character experience some internal conflict of whether to finally settle in on a normal life with Irene and her son or to continue on this path of a dangerous dark road. It felt metaphorical of a fork in the road going along with this drive imagery where Ryan’s character needed to make a life changing decision. Then just like a sudden car accident, the return of Irene’s imprisoned husband throws Ryan’s character’s life all off course. Carey’s husband is in debt to the guys that kept him alive while in jail and now must pay them back a huge sum for their protection or else he and his family will be harmed.  A simple enough reason that causes Ryan to jump back into that driver’s seat and take off into the world that he knows best and that’s driving. The stakes are now much higher for Ryan’s character as he has much more to lose and we can’t look away without knowing if Ryan will somehow get out of this whole that he has now dug himself into. 

Furthermore, I just thoroughly enjoyed how Refn had us on edge the entire time because we saw this brewing romance for those few moments within the film between Ryan and Carey’s character. Then like with the swift turn of a steering wheel, we saw Ryan’s character endure some bloody scenes that somehow worked perfectly with the entire mood of the film. One minute we would see Ryan and Carey’s characters smile at one another, gaze into each others eyes, and passionately kiss and then the next thing you know Ryan Gosling’s character is smashing a guys face so hard into the ground that the head becomes hollow. Perhaps the best part of it all is that the audience is cheering him on during the entire scene and you think to yourself, this is freaking awesome! It was so unexpected, but worked and again you just could not look away from this film because the shock factor was so successful and you needed to know what lengths would Ryan’s character go to next. A film unlike any other at the festival and for that reason alone, it stood out as a winner for me because I was finally awakened by a film as oppose to falling asleep in one. At times, there were just comedic moments and it was cool to see that these actors were not taking themselves too seriously. As for the cinematography elements, I thought the actual driving scenes were inviting, as Ryan would open the car door for the audience and have you sitting in the front seat with him seeing the open road from his perspective. Refn wanted to give us a thriller, action, drama all in a car ride that we would not forget. I think that he did just that and now I am ready to take the drive once again to see this film while listening to the fantastic soundtrack...with Ryan Gosling at my side.