short film reviews, criticism, and occasional musing.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Drive (2011, USA)

It’s a little odd calling a genre film like Drive “beautiful,” but there you go –it’s pure cinematic treat, unfolding with a languor you rarely see in American films of any stripe, much less the action sort. I’m sure this has been repeated ad nauseum by critics from Cannes and beyond, but Nicolas Winding Refn takes the genre, draws it out a beat or three, adds some glorious ‘80s strokes, and stirs it all together to an excruciating finish. Drive may take its sweet time to get up to speed, but once it arrives, all bets are off. It’s both canny and totally guileless – the audience I saw it with was almost entirely disarmed by the time the second half came crashing in, though if you’d honestly assessed the goings-on from the outset, you’d have no real cause for surprise. It’s a credit to Refn’s skill (please see the awesome Bronson if you haven’t already) that he’s able to make the inevitable seem so jarring. Also to credit are the actors he’s grouped – the curt Ryan Gosling, the winning but shy Carey Mulligan, and the awesomely frightening one-two punch of Ron Perlman and Albert Brooks. Yes, THAT Albert Brooks. Drive makes me hopeful that the fall of 2011 will make up for the general void of spring and summer. I don’t’ see it as an American awards-season contender, but it’ll have legs far longer.

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