maxwell barna looks at the Ryan Gosling thriller in a much more negative light …
Before heading out to the theater this evening, I decided to pluck around on RottenTomatoes.com to see what people were saying about Drive, which premiered this past Friday in theaters across the country. I’d seen the trailers for the past few weeks and the movie looked like it was going to kill. And with Ryan Gosling as the film’s lead, I knew it would be relatively easy to get my girl to go with me.
I was relieved to discover the film received pretty rave reviews from both fans and critics. Though I couldn’t find the exact review, I remember one critic even referring to it as something similar in gory excellence to Quentin Tarantino — this got me even more amped up.
But I don’t know who’s to blame for my terrible time at the theater this evening. Perhaps I should have walked out after the obnoxiously ’80s opening credits in a hot-pink jagged script. Or perhaps I should have left after the first 25 minutes worth of obscure, non-sequential cut scenes. Or perhaps, just maybe, I should have left after the first hour when, I shit you not, nothing even remotely exciting happened.
To put things into perspective, the film is about a Hollywood stunt driver and mechanic by day (Gosling) and a professional wheelman by night. Gosling becomes familiar with his neighbors, a woman named Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her son, Benicio (Kaden Leos). But when Irene’s husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac), is released from prison, things get a little hairy. Long and incredibly dull story short, Gosling, whose character remains unnamed (no, really, the starring character in this film is credited only as “Driver”), agrees to help Standard get himself out of some financial trouble he got himself into during his stint in prison. But everything goes wrong. Great premise, right?
Well, tell that to the movie’s director, Nicolas Winding Refn, because I’m certain he had no idea what to do with it. And I know some of you must be thinking, “But his screenplay for Bronson was so good!” And that might be true, but he completely dropped the ball on this movie.
The film is entirely too slow and has more holes than a homeless man’s socks. While I won’t go through them here, I assure everyone that you’ll be in the theater asking yourself, “Why the hell is this even necessary” more than once. I’m not one for spoilers, and I don’t technically consider this one, but the film begins with what felt like at 15-20 minute car chase that served as nothing more than nonsensical filler.
Also, I challenge someone to go through the film’s script, because I’m not enough of a movie-geek to do it myself. But I’m 99-percent certain that he, THE MAIN CHARACTER, couldn’t possibly have spoken more than 300-400 words the entire movie — and the only reason I’m giving him that many is because he has a couple scenes of dialogue in between all the one or two-word spurts throughout.
Drive has been called a particularly violent and gory movie. But this also appears to be a falsified exaggeration in my opinion. Speaking strictly statistically, the movie has a run time (which includes the opening and closing credits) of 1:40. For the first hour, nothing at all happens. After that, things pick up, but not nearly as much as all of these critics are claiming. I won’t say who dies, but throughout the film’s entirety, only something like eight people actually die, and only three or four of them can be considered decently gory.
For a movie that’s been regarded as “a needle punch to the aorta” and “pedal-to-the-metal stuff,” it absolutely does not live up to its reputation. People in the theater I was in openly mocked the ending with snickers and audible questions of, “what the hell was that,” and “are you kidding me.” In wholehearted honesty, I’ve seen bar fights that were more entertaining than this film. Whoever said elements of this film could be compared to the likes of Tarantino should be punched in their mouth. Someone had to say it, and quite frankly, I’ve never had a problem being “that guy.”
If you’re into silent films or have a mustache and live in Brooklyn, NY (in which case you probably like silent films), then Drive is the movie for you. It’s not Tarantino, but it is pretentious, over-artsy, and 85 percent boring.
My rating? 1 out of 10. Which gives this film an average of 5.
Editor’s Note: To read a polar opposite review of Drive, check out Daniel Cohen’s review, which was posted on Sunday.
