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Drive may be my favorite movie of the year.

Drive takes your expectation of non-stop brutal violence and turns it into art.

The plot is of biblical simplicity. In fact, if you have read The Scorpion and the Frog (http://allaboutfrogs.org/stories/scorpion.html) then you know this film’s story. But that’s not the point. In order to fully understand the beauty of this film, one must look at the entire picture - composition, lighting, cinematography, acting, costume design, and dialogue.

The characters feel distinct and realistic. Driver (Ryan Gosling) has no told background like Clint Eastwood’s character in The Man with No Name trilogy. He’s a loner that is widely known to wear a stylish white jacket with a scorpion on the back. Working part time as a Hollywood stunt driver, Driver and his friend Shannon (Bryan Cranston) are co-workers on and off the set – working full time as local mechanics in Los Angeles. Silence and subtlety haunts throughout. It lingers yet creates a sort of emotional intrigue between the two leads. Driver and Irene (Carey Mulligan) have a shy chemistry between each other - one that electrifies through the stillness of the dialogue. In an interview with Indiewire, director Nicolas Winding Refn said, “In the end... essentially I was making a movie about what I would do and the purity of love between my wife and myself.” Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks) immediately darkens the screen with his cutting words and cynicism while his partner, Nino (Ron Perlman), is an angry and slightly idiotic gangster that runs a pizzeria. I refuse to give away the intensity of the key plot developments but all of these characters intertwine and the Driver has to get his white scorpion jacket dirty.

Nicolas Winding Refn and the Director of Photography, Newton Thomas Sigel, worked in perfect harmony on this film. The cinematography is stunning. It maintains a classic film noir feel while it pumps in the direness of Quentin Tarantino’s drawn out and often ruthless climaxes. Drive is certainly not a bastardized version of any modern director’s work. It has a mind of its own - a uniqueness. There are a lot of colors in Drive and they definitely set the tones throughout the film. The soundtrack marries with the visuals, especially the credit’s pink font. 80’s synthpop vibes resonate throughout the film. Some tracks are substantially more somber than others. Drive is a song for the eyes and a movie for the ears.

Besides a few factual and continuity errors, I consider this to be a near perfect film. This film is not for everyone. When the violence occurs, it is all or nothing, brutal and unflinching. It is definitely a tribute to the art house genre. Refn doesn’t censor himself and I admire that. Drive is now available on DVD and Blu Ray.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/drive_2011/

My rating: 4.5/5