Valuable Movies: Drive

Blah blah blah "Some spoilers ahead" blah blah blah DRIVE

After creating my Top 15 Movies of the Decade So Far list, I went out and rented a few movies in order to make it through my Need-To-See portion of that list. I did not want to immediately start with Tree of Life, knowing what a unique experience it was going to be, and I heard mixed things about Her, so I began with Drive. It is on multiple other such Top lists and is hailed as one of the most unique looking movies with a different style of craftsmanship in terms of acting and storyline.

I like to mainly do my movie critiques by examining them in terms of Artistic Value and Moral Value. I will make sure to do so with this movie as well, but I first wanted to begin with my overall impression of the movie, since it has been several days since I watched it and I've been digesting on it ever since.

I really wanted to like this movie. Not just because it was hailed as one of the decade's best, but because I like movies that are different and there are so many fantastic actors in this movie. I'm not even usually a Ryan Gosling fan, but since he was not trying to be pretty boy and really made an effort to go for an out-of-the-box kind of character, I wanted to appreciate his stretch of acting chops. However, there is no doubt in my mind: I really did not care for this movie. It was so poorly paced, it abused the concept of slow motion, it pretended that mystery equals good character development, and it had the brass to pass itself off as something new and refreshing when it clearly pays homage to so many other movies.

Artistic Value (Rating: 2.5)

I'm not going to pretend like I was expecting an action thriller, though the trailers for this movie certainly hyped up the car chase and violent action factors of this movie. It is definitely a drama over an action piece, and I framed my viewing of it from a dramatic perspective. Despite the fact I knew this movie was more of a drama than an action movie, I still expected there to be more car chases than what we were given. Collectively, there's just two, one in the beginning and one in the middle. Both are beautifully spectacular. Great stunt work, great tension, great pacing and camerawork.
The chase scenes, especially in connection with the storyline, were reminiscent of Transporter or Bullitt. Perhaps too much so in some ways.

But Steve McQueen never drove his Mustang backwards, so there!

The dialogue and the subject matter, however, led me to believe that there would be at least one more if not a couple car chases. They talk so much about what an extraordinary driver Ryan Gosling is (he is only referred to as Driver in the movie so I just call him Ryan Gosling), and the conflict in the middle of the movie builds up to a potentially great chase scene that outdoes the two, but none of it pays off. Instead, we're just given as many varieties of shots featuring Ryan Gosling casually driving down L.A. as possible.

Part of the artistry of this movie is the cinematography. The best thing this cinematography has going for it is how it captures the look and feeling of the urban landscape. This movie shows both a beautiful side and an ugly side of L.A.. The setting surrounding Ryan Gosling as he's driving around is great to look at and really pulls you into this world. However, the cinematography can also be a distraction. It was distracting because there were lots of specifically framed angles of moments. Almost like the story was being told in photos rather than moving imagery. There are multiple multiple scenes that linger on the specific image rather than really moving forward.

The cinematography also influences the pacing of the movie. Honestly, the run time of this movie would've been cut in half if slow-motion was not used. Good golly, did this movie assault the use of slow-mo! Many times we are treated to one long extended take, which in a normal movie would just fly by in maybe ten seconds at most, but the camera lingers on the moment for way too many minutes. Yet, even with that, the movie ended really fast. I sat down to watch it for short intervals and within two viewings I was suddenly done when I expected to finish the next day. It's only 100 minutes and somehow one of the slowest moving movies I've seen in awhile ended faster than I expected. Did I perhaps abuse the fast forward button on my remote?

The reason why this is a problem is because if the movie is poorly paced and the viewer thinks the scene is going by too slowly, they're going to get bored and either lose focus or leave or intentionally tune out the movie mentally until something exciting happens. Because the cinematography relied so heavily on slow-mo, we're treated to so many minutes of the same exact image where nothing new is happening or being discovered. This is different from moments, either in this movie or in others, where we linger on a character and we see their internal thinking and conflict as their eyes wander around the person or the environment around them.

This movie may provide extraordinary characters in an extraordinary situation, but it still roots itself in realism. The violence is visibly painful for the characters and the blood effects are very realistic. The one area I think that lacked the most realism is the dialogue, more specifically how other characters reacted whenever they try to have a conversation with Ryan Gosling. How did people not get mad at Ryan Gosling's character whenever he didn't talk? Literally, multiple people would ask him a direct question, he would just silently stare at them for ten seconds, and then they just carried on as if this was a normal thing.  Not once did anyone mention this or even explode on him. I get it, we've turned Ryan Gosling into a meme at this point and his character in the movie is supposed to be a strong, silent type, but still.

"Hey Girl...(ten minutes of silent staring)...hey"

I'll end on a positive note. The soundtrack added some nice mood and atmosphere to this movie. People comment a lot about the soundtrack on this movie as being one of the highlights and it is. The modern techno, electronic noise adds to the L.A. landscape. The soundtrack also provided some basic narration on the movie's events or character thoughts. The technical sound effects in the songs actually made them even more appealing.

Moral Value (Rating: 1)

The Ryan Gosling character may be the main character of the story but he is definitely not a hero. He is just a mentally strange individual lacking the same greed demonstrated by the antagonists of the movie. Ryan Gosling is the strong silent type who really is only nice to certain people in order to get what he wants. His only positive trait is that he cares for his neighbor Irene (played by Carey Mulligan) and her son, caring just enough to protect them from danger or harm.

That positive trait is negated by the fact that this caring feeling involves lust for a married woman. I believe the movie was structured and framed a certain way so that Gosling's feelings and actions towards Mulligan are not considered bizarre or absurd. It's trying to justify his feelings by making Irene attracted to Ryan Gosling as well. I mean, when your husband is some deadbeat just released from prison, why not attract yourself to the mute stranger next door? Really think about this. Would you consider Ryan Gosling's actions okay in the real world (flirting with/ hitting on a married woman, staring at her for long periods of time, squarely protecting the son and mother but not giving two turds about the husband Oscar Isaac) if Mulligan's character did not reciprocate his feelings of romance and lust?

The most sympathetic character is Bryan Cranston, and that's because we feel sorry for him from the get-go. He's a down on his luck kind of guy who suffered a tragic accident in the past and is begging to find a second chance in life, and is finding some redemption in helping Ryan Gosling find work and trying to help Ryan Gosling hook up with Carey Mulligan because he knows they're an attractive couple. His death is the one with the greatest emotional impact.

No! Not Malcolm's dad, Walter Heisenberg!!!!

Essentially the best moral to take away from this movie is: Don't get involved in any mafia shenanigans in any way, even by accident. The mob comes into play almost out of nowhere in this movie, so that the second half really emphasizes the crime drama aspect of the movie. All the elements of Shakespearean tragedy come into play in this movie only when mobsters and money come into focus.

Perhaps one question this movie is trying to explore is: How do you handle evil when you're trying to do good? Ryan Gosling is trying to do what he thinks is right and good, which only leads him to cause more death and destruction as he loses control of his emotions and strength. He wants to return some stolen money, but the bad guys want to kill him in order to cover their tracks. He wants revenge for the death of Bryan Cranston, which only results in more death and destruction. So really, while Ryan Gosling tries to offer some semblance of 'good' in this movie, he really is not any more justifiably good than any of the villainous characters.

Finally, the MPAA rating. This movie earns its R rating mainly for the violence, which again is realistic, and only in certain circumstances is the storytelling and moral philosophy justified in its depiction of the violence. Language also comes into play, with various profanities and racial slurs, which is only really used to show how despicable and streetwise some of these characters are. There is a scene that takes places backstage of a strip club, so there's various shots and angles of women in the background without tops on and very little else. Really, this scene could've occurred without the women in the background (they don't run away when someone's about to get murdered right in front of them) and despite the setting, the nudity to me is not justified. There is good reason for this movie to be rated R, but not everything in that R rating is necessary in order for this movie to exist.

Drive: Overall Rating Score (1.75 out of 5)