This is a tough movie to review as it keeps changing as you’re watching it. What starts out as a great, realistic movie about a getaway driver in L.A. then morphs into a relationship movie between that driver and his married next door neighbor. Just when you’re getting used to that movie, it then morphs into a broader action film with overly stylized violence and a weird love of 80’s music (there’s way too much nostalgia for the 80’s), and finally goes full out into a revenge movie. So, I guess I’m saying that Drive is a mess when there is probably 25 percent of a great movie buried in there.
What Works: That opening scene is a keeper. Bryan Cranston does what he can in a supporting role that’s supposed to be comedic relief. And Albert Brooks surprises us for the first time since Out of Sight as a deceptively “nice” Jewish gangster hiding a sadistic streak.
What Doesn’t Work: The tonal shifts. The eventual slow motion, hyper-violence that feels more at home in Robert Rodriguez movie than what we were watching. The overly complicated, coincidence heavy second act.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Thrown out all the unrealistically gory violence and love of slow motion shots set to 80’s music (all of it too fetish heavy). And just made a stripped down, realistic movie about what it’s like to be a getaway driver in L.A.–a sprawling city where you’ll have to drive to commit any crime. That first scene is the best scene in the movie because we feel like we’re watching an actual heist, and getting into this specific underworld job could have been a real keeper.
amazing sound track and Ryan ohh soo cute.