![]() The grimy transformation is even represented in a more literal sense, as the Driver puts on a prosthetic mask he steals from his day job as a stunt driver-a look that falls somewhere between Michael Myers and Karl Havoc-to drown Ron Perlman’s mob boss Nino in the Pacific Ocean.īut beneath the splatterings of gore and the film’s laconic pacing, Drive had enough potential as a crowd-pleaser that Refn was earmarked to make the jump to blockbusters, where, presumably in the mind of a studio executive, the auteur’s rougher edges could be sanded out. curdling into a bloody (but still neon-lit) nightmare. (To wit: Refn’s previous film, Valhalla Rising, features Mads Mikkelsen as a one-eyed Norse warrior who rips several people apart with his bare hands.) In the context of the movie, though, Drive’s second half is a riveting descent into chaos: a starry, neon-lit L.A. It’s in these gnarly moments that Refn channels his natural impulse as a provocateur and fits Drive into the rest of his body of work. (The sickos, meanwhile, were like “Yes … ha ha ha … yes!”)Ī Guide to Understanding-and Maybe Loving-Nicolas Winding Refn Some folks probably tapped out when Christina Hendricks’s head exploded like a watermelon, or when Albert Brooks stabbed a dude in the eye with a fork, or when Gosling caved in a goon’s skull with his foot. But when the Driver and Irene’s feel-good vibes start to sour, beginning with her husband Standard’s (Oscar Isaac) release from prison and culminating in a pawn shop heist gone wrong, Drive explodes with the kind of ludicrous yet artful ultraviolence more aligned with its director’s sensibilities. ![]() In fact, a not-insignificant portion of the film is admirably restrained-the Driver and Irene share loving glances at each other like they’re in the middle of a fairy tale. Perhaps that feeling of a bait-and-switch is elevated because Drive initially seems like a more conventional film, with the opening sequence followed by a developing romance between the Driver and his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan). (I sure hope nobody sues James Wan for Malignant’s bonkers third act.) One woman in Michigan even filed a lawsuit (!) against Drive’s distributors over its misleading trailers. The film earned an underwhelming C-minus rating on Cinemascore, likely due to the fact that it bucked the expectation of a more straightforward action thriller. ![]() But Drive’s critical adoration, which also included a Best Director win at the Cannes Film Festival, belies a more uneven response among mainstream audiences. While he already had seven feature films under his belt, Drive was Refn’s commercial breakthrough, grossing over $75 million and landing on many critics’ year-end lists in 2011. At the same time, though, Drive is a microcosm of what makes the Danish auteur so polarizing. As far as first impressions go, Drive’s opening car chase was one hell of a table-setter it’s among the strongest sequences of Refn’s entire career. ![]() If the Fast & Furious franchise represented where Hollywood was headed-its street racers turning into physics-defying superheroes that would compete with the likes of Marvel-then Drive was a throwback molded by neo-noir classics like Bullitt, The Driver, and Thief. Released in the same year as Fast Five, a delirious blockbuster that culminates with a giant vault tearing through the streets of Rio de Janeiro, Drive’s bravura opening highlighted that there’s more than one way to execute a nail-biting car chase, especially when operating on an indie budget. Of course, that Clippers game isn’t just background noise, as the ingenious climax sees the Driver hide in plain sight at the Staples Center parking garage just as the fourth quarter comes to a close. (To paraphrase an iconic quote from a movie whose director Refn is trying to emulate: The driving is the juice.) The ensuing car chase is less high octane than cerebral: a cat-and-mouse game between the Driver and the cops, wordless save for the police scanner and a Clippers game playing on the radio. The Driver-that’s what we’ll call him-gives his associates a five-minute window to do their thing, a half-assed robbery that Refn has little interest in explaining. Using minimal exposition-an appropriate decision considering the lead character is never given a name-the movie establishes that our protagonist (played by Ryan Gosling) is a getaway driver for hire within Los Angeles’s criminal underbelly. Nicolas Winding Refn prefers shooting his films chronologically, so as we reflect on the 10-year anniversary of Drive, we might as well start with the opening sequence. ![]()
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