The Collegian
Thursday, March 28, 2024

"Drive:" A Movie Review

The movie "Drive" follows a character who is based on a superman-type persona, barely speaks and is also as awkward as Ryan Gosling's character in "Lars and the Real Girl." Sure, he's a stoic superhero with a secret identity but he's also awkward, makes strange decisions and gets involved with really obvious crime kingpins. And instead of flying faster than a speeding bullet and leaping tall buildings, his superpowers include driving getaway cars and invisibility.

Now imagine you watched a two-hour movie in which this wooden superboy starts out cool, calm and collected and then suddenly transforms into Jason Statham at the halfway point. You'd go see that movie, wouldn't you?

Let me tell you now that "Drive" is...unfortunate. It's artsy (not in a good way) and long and weighed down by a lot of silence and weird loud music that's supposed to sub for exposition so no one has to talk more than is absolutely necessary to keep it from being a silent movie.

You have Ryan Gosling as a stunt man who moonlights as a getaway driver during robberies. You have Carey Mulligan as an equally mute semi-single mother who has such terrible taste and luck with men you just know her next husband is going to be serial killer. You have Ron Perlman - God bless him - who is slowly mutating into one of those walking trees from "Lord of the Rings." You have Albert Brooks as a raspy-voiced Mafioso with anger management issues. And this movie is about all of them pissing each other off.

In all honesty, this film isn't worth the $10 you'd spend on the ticket. It isn't even worth the couple dollars you'd spend on gas to get to the theater. But despite my distinct, intense feeling that this movie is oh-so-awful, I really enjoyed watching it.

Once I got through the beginning, which is like a longer version of that scene in "Twilight" where the main girl wakes up to find Robert Pattinson staring at her, the action blew me away with how brutal and unplanned it all seemed.

Guns, knives, boots, water - pick your weapon of death. If you like watching people die gruesomely, you'll love watching this flick. Plus you get to wonder how someone made these seemingly random characters come together dramatically enough to form a plot with a beginning, middle and end. Seriously, I think you would have to be high to understand the nuances the director was going for. Or maybe it's just me, considering it now has an 8.8/10 rating on IMDB.com. Maybe I'm the one who's unwilling to understand.

Still, I really meant it when I wrote that this movie is strangely regrettable. So if you're trying to save money, just wait until "Drive" comes to HBO...and then laugh through it with a group of friends.

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