After we watched the intro to Drive in class, I knew it was a movie that I had to see. Before I had seen any of the movie, however, it didn't appeal to me. From purely the trailers and commercials alone, I assumed it was just another action movie, with the usual car chases and fights. However, it turned out to be so much more than that. To shortly summarize it without any spoilers, it is about a man who lives two lives. He is a stunt driver and mechanic on the surface, but does extracurricular work being a getaway driver for criminals. Unfortunately, he gets involved with the wrong crew and it puts him, and his girl, in danger. Honestly, I wasn't a huge fan of the plot itself because the overall story was unoriginal and had been done before.
One scene in particular that impacted me was after the they rob the pawn shop. They are being chased by another car down a desert highway on a mountain. This whole chase scene puts you on the edge of your seat and was non-stop action. They eventually get away and go to a motel where the Driver, (Ryan Gosling), accuses Blanche, (Christina Hendricks) of setting them up. He violently puts her on the bed and chokes her while pointing a gun at her head. This invokes a lot of emotion from the viewer, because 1. it is extremely violent, and 2. it is basically a man beating up a woman. It blurs the line between what is good and bad in the main character and makes the viewer think. After this is over, Christina Hendricks goes to the bathroom to clean up herself, when a man appears outside and blows her head up with a shotgun. This grotesque, unexpected violence seems to be a theme of the movie. It was certainly not a typical movie scene which was what made it so memorable for me.
I thought the Cinematography of Drive was the best part of the movie. Overall, it made it seem like a piece of art rather than just another Hollywood movie, which I really appreciated. The camera shots themselves were all creative, when Ryan Gosling drove, they put a fixed camera pointing at him and out the drivers window of the car, giving the audience the feel of being in the car with him. They also used a lot of mirrors, from Irene's apartment, to the rear view mirror, to the glass of Nino's pizzeria. In addition, the whole color scheme of the movie was uniform, a lot of dark backgrounds with bright blue or orange accents, which again, made it seem like art instead of just a movie. A cool website I found takes the average color of each scene, and puts it into a series of lines which show the color progression throughout the movie. For Drive, the "Movie Barcode" (shown below) reinforces the color scheme I found the movie to have.
Overall, I would give this movie an 8/10, or 8 thumbs up. There was a lot of things I liked about it, but a few things I did not. The main thing I didn't like was the plot itself. It was too cliche, the married girl the main character loves, the bad guy that is out to get him, the ultimatums and cat and mouse chase scenes, Ive seen it all before and it did not impress me. The rest of the movie however, the acting by Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan, the motifs and symbolism, and the cinematography especially, all were extremely well done and made it very enjoyable to watch. I would recommend anyone who likes artistic value in movies to watch this. If you're looking for a strictly action, car/driving movie however, I would look elsewhere.
