spike said:
Can anyone explain to me why they thought Drive was amazing? I stand by my original thoughts about it: Pseudo-intellectual hipster gibble.
Mad spoiler action below...
It was a combination of its parts. Firstly, for a noir crime genre film, it had surprisingly complex and interesting characters brought to life through great writing/directing and some excellent acting. Leaving aside the brilliant performances of the leads for a second (seriously, has any actor made you understand so much of what they were thinking in a single half smirk than Ryan Gosling in this?), the minor characters are awesome! Albert Brooks is amazingly scary (way the fuck against type - although Hank Scorpio is pretty dastardly too), Bryan Cranston is impressive as always - that scene when he realised he was about die and shriveled up in sadness, helplessness, regret, fear, so many emotions flashing by in a second - the guy is a gifted actor at the peak of his craft right now. Ron Perlman is Ron Perlman, a fucking boss hog scene stealer in anything he's in. His casting is a necessary one to add to the noir genre nature of the film. His character acting is so perfect you just know his story before he says a word but even with that expectation, he still steals scenes, except when Albert Brook is sharing it, then he has to settle for equal billing.
The cinematography and soundtrack go hand in hand. They combine to give you this nostalgic retro feel that I just loved. The saturation of red colors made me recall GTA: Vice City in that throwback to the 80's appearance, the overhead shots of LA evoked Michael Mann's best work. It felt like the film makers were deliberately and lovingly paying homage to the films/tv that they grew up with. The music despite all being recent all had that retro 80's synth thang going on. Kavinsky's Nightcall just set the whole thing up from the get go.
Apparently the director, Nicholas Winding ( I think that's his name without double checking) doesn't drive at all and was being driven around by Ryan Gosling in preproduction all the time and this inspired him to shoot most of the drive action from a passengers perspective, which personally I think works amazingly well. The opening sequence is a terrific example of this. It's a wickedly tense sequence of cat and mouse all shot (apart from a couple of necessary shots) from the passenger seat. I feel this implicates us in the action. It makes us feel a part of the heist and adds more to the tension than if we were viewing from a remote third person perspective. I really enjoyed how key action sequences were done like this. It felt fresh and original and worked really well.
When this project was conceived, it was supposed to be a b grade action thriller directed by a slasher director (Neill Marshall) and starring Nicholas Cage or someone similar. When Ryan Gosling came on board, he brought in Nicholas Winding and together they imagined a completely different take on it. It uses the genre convention to guide you to put two and two together yourself without the need for obvious plot moments, such as when Ryan Gosling knows he's been set up by Christina Hendricks - because that's what is meant to happen in a noir film - the alluring women will *always* double cross you, and it also defies those conventions - do we ever see the big payoff scene wher Albert Brooks is finally triumphed? Do Gosling and Carey Mulligan ever sleep together? Aren't they meant to? Is he supposed to get along with her husband? Is her husband supposed to trust him - the guy who comes over to his wife's place and just... helps out? I just get so sick of overly formulaic films and it's nice when characters do what feels natural to the scene rather than just following the convention and we the audience along with them...
But all that aside, it *is* still a crime noir genre piece and it functions perfectly well within those boundaries. The setup is great, the tension works and ratchets up through the course of the film as the stakes get higher. The violence is startling (and oh so brutal - the stabbing stuck with me for ages afterwards, the sound effects add so much to that scene) and effective. The bad guys are suitably scary and bad, the good guy is suitably noble and strong. The women either typical noir fatales or absolute angels, it's completely convincing to us that Driver would do this for Carey Mulligan and her son. The bond they form comes across as genuine and it is important to the film that the time was spent on developing this bond to make it so convincing. A lot of people complain about the pacing of the movie but it is absolutely necessary that the time was spent on these characters in the first half of the film because that's what makes us care. And that's what helps make this genre film rise above the others of its kind.
And above all it just oozes cool... That might be that hipsterism you were referring to but it's not unique to this film or even to films of this age. Ryan Gosling evokes Steve McQueen in his performance and so much of what makes Steve McQueen an enduring screen icon is that he is just so... fucking... cool. Witness his performance in Bullitt. People remember the car chases but Steve also defined a look, a fashion that is as memorable as the Mustang he drove. I'm not saying people are going to start dressing like Ryan does in Drive but I am saying that a lot of thought and deliberation went into what he wears, how he holds himself. Consider the use of the toothpick as a prop. It's all deliberate and it's all tres' cool.
Anyhows, it's late and I'm just ranting away. No doubt I will think of more shit later.
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JOKES. 
