Drive - Ryan Gosling and Nicholas Winding Refn

You forgot Christina Hendricks from Mad Men! Yes, this is one of the more enticing films of the fall slate this year. Refn's BRONSON with Tom Hardy was fantastic.

Also, looks like Gosling may have found his muse - he and Refn are in pre-pro on a Thai-boxing movie called Only God Forgives.
 
My friend caught an early screening and said this was the best action movie he's seen in years.
 
Refn is a great talent & seems to be able to create great work in many different ways/styles (all be it always pretty violent)
The Pusher trilogy had a gritty, dirty, low key realism
Bronson had an almost surreal theatrical feel
Valhalla Rising was all atmospheric, brooding darkness
now he's getting into action...am excited to see this
 
It was amazing. So well written, directed and acted. Some of the scenes felt "indie," like your typical mob/hitman movie, but overall the film was far above the average action flick, indie or otherwise.
 
I am re-watching the Pusher Trilogy tonight and going to see it tomorrow. I am looking forward to it. Like Refn's work. Should be sumptin.
 
Saw it last night- It was amazing.

Gosling, Brooks and Cranston were the standouts, but everyone was really good. The tone, musical choices and the overall aesthetic were perfect. I could tell many people were imagining a very different movie than what they got, no walkouts though.
 
Seems like everyone loved it, except for me.

***SPOILERS***

It kind of bugged me. I mean don't get me wrong, I was sooooo well written, I love Gosling (one of, if not my fave actor), and up to (and including) the motel scene it was amazing. But I just felt like after that it started falling apart for me. Maybe it was the over the top blood and gore, the ridiculous killings (a fork in the eye!?), or just the fact that pretty much everybody died... it didn't end well for me.

I mean did he really HAVE to show a guys heads being crushed and explode after stepping on it 50 times? Hearing it was gut wrenching enough for me.
 
Saw it today. Loved it.

Was cringing thinking of the balls it took to throw throwback pacing to the Generation ADD set in the audience.

Opening getaway scene, classic. From the retro watch to Gosling's coolness...it was McQueen s**t all the way (that's Steve, not Lightning)
 
Not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination but i wouldn't call it great. Very hyped to see it but left feeling very disappointed afterwards.

The trailer is a major problem as it featured every single (i think) action sequence so by the time i got to see the film there was no suspense/tension, actually the whole story had already been told in the trailer. That's an error surely. A trailer should only entice not tell the story. There was nothing left to tell by the time i got to cinema.

I reckon the distributor freaked out when they got the finished product, and decided to sell it on it's action parts which unfortunately are small in number. I've seen a lot of comment rebuking people who expected a no holds barred action film, but look at the trailer. That's what it promises. Lots of action.

Writing, character development and therefore direction of actors also seemed off to me. Ryan Gosling's character came off as a boring robot for the majority of the film. No slight on Gosling but there was nothing for me to love. I cared little for him, unlike Robert De Niro's character in Heat who i feel is a more relevant comparison than with the no name heroes of Eastwood and Bronson. The other characters were one dimensional carbon copies.

I felt that the pacing and scene design was not good. Too many starts and stops. The film only really gets going after 40 minutes of which all 40 minutes was was pure exposition. The opening car chase had no relevance to the story except to tell us Gosling drives for criminals. Other scenes shows he works in a garage and he drives for the movies and he might be a racing driver. Yeah i get it, he's quite a good driver. The dating scenes were nothing more than to tell us Gosling and Irene are a bit hot and heavy for one another. It doesn't take half a dozen scenes to say that, this is pure back story-express it in one scene, one bit of body language.

On the plus side. One of the best soundtracks i have ever heard and used brilliantly in the film, and the cinematography beautiful, especially the night shots.

Worth a watch but extremely flawed.
 
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I loved it. The pacing was incredible. People in the theater were starting to get fidgety - what happened to sitting and enjoying a film? Drive excelled in its silence. Of course everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I feel like this is a movie that some people got and for others, it just went way over their heads. Those who got it, loved it and those who didn't hated it or thought it mediocre.

Movie of the year for me,

Kegan
 
I sawr it and though I was pretty awesome. Loved the pacing, loved the compositions, but especially loved that Ryan Gosling didn't say much. I find myself wondering how many pages that script timed out too.

Also, how did people feel about the convenient moments in the movie? Lots of it was happenstance. Did it bother you?
 
LoganMackay said:
Which convenient moments are you talking about Kholi?
Click to expand...

Well, like the hero gets caught up in a heist gone wrong with his neighbor's ex-con husband, in Los Angeles, and the bad guys just happen to be folks his mentor already has a shady past with.... Yeah, I thought about that, and don't necessarily care for it, but in a story like this, I just let it go. These kind of movies are more about emotion, metaphor and myth to judge them on pure plausibility.
 
Ah, that didn't bother me really. It would be uncommon for something like that to happen, but not impossible. The fact that it is even acknowledged in the movie is a testament to that.
 
Loved everything about it except the car chases. Do you really expect me to believe that a 300c can keep up with a new 5.0 mustang? Especially when this guy can do "magic" behind the wheel? I also didn't like the engine revving and changing gears in the beginning when his suped-up car wasn't even gaining on the traffic in front of him. His NASCAR was also changing gears without him touching the sequential shifter. I'm not saying it needed a Michael Bay style freeway car chase with an entire city exploding around it, but those scenes could have been bigger and still fit into the aesthetic of the film. Ronin has great car chases, but that style would be a little off for this film. Maybe more like the big car chase in Bullit or even Death Proof (although much shorter). Other than the driving bits I really liked it, but I really wanted to like those too in a movie called Drive
 
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So what is the consensus on the look? I loved it. I think that digital cinematography is starting to push the aesthetic envelope. I am going to go this weekend and see it again, to concentrate more on the cinematography, but I was very pleased with the first viewing.
 
I loved the cinematography. Some of the more odd compositions were really beautiful, reminded me a lot of the kings speech. The Alexa is really quite amazing. Obviously it is the man behind the camera, but it really is a beast. I believe they uses Cooke glass for at least some of the film too.
 
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