I really enjoyed both the camera work (smooth, steady and capturing discreet glimpses into their lives) and the 80s retro soundtrack. The acting was also controlled - and Gosling has a very interesting future.
****
Drive is very good - if not quite 5 star. First and foremost, it is a very controlled film. Refn has created something new and different. because most directors - given that storyline and script - would have made it into a mindless, run-of-the-mill testosterone action vengeance movie, with car chases and explosions galore. Something akin to The Fast and the Furious. How grateful am I that this not that. Not even close. Instead what Refn has done is make a film that is as much a work of art as it is entertainment. It is neither ‘Hollywood Blockbuster’, but neither is it your typical ‘Independent Indie Art-House’ fare. It flirts with both genres and becomes an interesting hybrid. The scene in the elevator is perhaps the best example of this. The tenderness shared between Driver and Irene, in the midst of danger, is poignant and the slow motion, combined with the soft, warm lighting gives the moment a very emotional yet vulnerable quality to it. And then our eponymous hero collapses a man’s skull with his boot in a moment of stark and almost unrivalled brutality. The tenderness juxtaposes extremely effectively with this hard core violence. The savagery is all the more repugnant because of the moments of tenderness throughout. Life is not a fairy tale romance it seems to say. I really enjoyed both the camera work (smooth, steady and capturing discreet glimpses into their lives) and the 80s retro soundtrack. The acting was also controlled - and Gosling has a very interesting future. ****
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Some typical Arnie 80s fare on offer here as our biceped hero kills his way to victory whilst offering a plethora of cheesy puns along the way. You know, the usual corny throwaway line of “He had to split” after he sliced some bad guy down the middle with a chainsaw, or after strangling another deserving villain with some barbed wire, “What a pain in the neck.” Terrible, and yet somehow brilliant. You know you’d be very disappointed if they weren’t there. Based loosely on a Stephen King short story (how prolific is he?) set in a dystopian world, Arnie is supposed to pay for his “crimes” against society by being the hunted target in a rigged TV show. You can pretty much write the rest for yourself… he doesn’t go softly into the night, but he fights back and kills the hunters sent to kill him… whilst dropping terrible yet brilliant puns in all over the place. Oh and there is a ridiculous tacked on romance angle too. I know, how silly and utterly unnecessary. This is by no means the best Arnie film, but there are worse. *** |
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November 2012
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