Advertisement

Movies & TV Movies & TV Reviews

Drive

DRIVE directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, written by Hossein Amini from the novel by James Sallis, with Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston and Albert Brooks. An Alliance Films release. 100 minutes. Opens Friday (September 16). See listing. Rating: NNNN


Nicolas Winding Refn’s stripped-down crime picture Drive won the best director prize at Cannes. It’s a solid riff on stylish 80s brooders like Michael Mann’s Thief and William Friedkin’s To Live And Die In L.A.

Ryan Gosling stars as a stunt driver who moonlights as a wheelman for hire when he tries to help a neighbour (Carey Mulligan), he finds himself on the wrong side of some very bad people. Blood and retribution follow.

Winding Refn shakes off the theatricality of his last film, Bronson, for a more intimate approach, and his actors are right there with him: Gosling finds the middle ground between Steve McQueen and a Terminator, Mulligan is appropriately winsome and Bryan Cranston brings tragic gravity to the role of Gosling’s shady employer. But it’s Albert Brooks who walks off with the picture as a gimlet-eyed heavy with a fondness for edged weapons.

Advertisement

Exclusive content and events straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our Newsletter

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By signing up, I agree to receive emails from Now Toronto and to the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

Recently Posted