Drive

A+

Artful use of lighting and shadows, high-decibel retro electronic pop and slow-paced silent pauses, warm close-ups and chilling long shots, created a cinematic experience that's exciting and disturbing.

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Many movies get made by outsiders (from Europe or Sundance) who've attracted attention with their debut efforts and gain bigger productions that seek stylish direction at small cost. In the case of Drive, Nicolas Winding Refn was already a young Danish veteran when he got the director's chair for his fourth English-language feature.

His first was Fear X, a 2003 psychological thriller adapted from a Hubert Selby story by Refn. Its lead actor was an unwise choice: John Turturro's name didn't help at the box office and the film's failure bankrupted Refn's production company. Forced back into Danish-language work, Refn made two sequels to his successful 1996 debut, Pusher, and its successor, Bleeder. Their glossy shock value gained him British production funds for two screenplays: Bronson (2008) and the virtually wordless and visually thrilling Valhalla Rising (2009).

Drive, based on a 2005 crime thriller by James Sallis, is the crisp story of a taciturn garage mechanic and part-time stunt driver who moonlights for robbery gangs. Initially a Universal project for Hugh Jackman, it ended up as a low-budget (US$13 million) indie production headlined by rising Canadian star Ryan Gosling. He reportedly chose Refn to direct the book's screen adaptation (by Iranian Hossein The Wings of the Dove Amini). English Carey Mulligan, got the key female role as a single mother who needs saving from vicious gangsters.

The film is Gosling's latest "breakthrough", like almost every other film he's ever made: The Believer (2001), Murder by Numbers (2002), The Notebook (2004), Half Nelson (2006), Lars and the Real Girl (2007), Oscar-nominated Blue Valentine (2010). With two years' work as a child performer on TV (Mickey Mouse Club), and solid supporting roles recently (Crazy, Stupid, Love and The Ides of March) Gosling has a track record ready for recognition by Oscar voters.

Refn has got the recognition he's deserved for Drive, winning Best Director award at Cannes 2011. It's easy to see and sense why. His artful use of lighting and shadows, high-decibel retro electronic pop and slow-paced silent pauses, warm close-ups and chilling long shots, created a cinematic experience that's exciting and disturbing. There are moments when the facial studies of the actors is just too long for the retention of dramatic pace, and there are gruesome gory blood-letting head-butting scenes whose sense of reality is too real for comfort.

Overall, though, this is a movie that grabs the eyes, ears - and brain - from its sharply-paced car-chase opening action sequence. It's a cleverly constructed screenplay whose key elements could have been B-movie cliches: conflicted criminal (Oscar Isaac), adorable Latino boy, limping older colleague (Bryan Cranshaw), foul-mouthed racially-stereotypical gangsters (Ron Perlman and Albert Brooks), slutty moll (Christina Hendricks).

Such standard characters needed above-average actors, and the whole supporting cast is a galaxy of movie acting talent; they support Gosling well. His toothpick-chewing shyly-smiling quietly-spoken man of vengeance is a very modern anti-hero with the stylishness of a repressed 1980s action hero. His survival at the end of the saga, and his parting drive, into the LA nightscape, left an open option for his reappearance. It would be unwise: a very good film is unlikely to be bettered and the attempt would be commercially and artistically unwise. For now, very wisely, Gosling has stepped into lead role for Refn's next screenplay. It sounds an extra-ordinary concept, set in Bangkok, co-produced with French funds and Kristin Scott-Thomas: something to really look forward to.