Drive

I love it when a movie is far better than it initially looks. It's a rare treat, but there's that occasional movie that comes in and exceeds all of your expectations. The trailers for Drive make it look like little more than car-oriented action flick, but the first fifteen minutes of the movie lets you know that this isn't the movie experience you thought it was going to be. It's going to be much better.

Drive is the first US film by Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, and stars Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Albert Brooks, Ron Perlman, Bryan Cranston, and Christina Hendricks. Gosling plays the titular Driver, a nameless stuntman and mechanic who moonlights as a getaway driver. I know, the character sounds like an action movie archetype, but Gosling's performance will blow away any preconceived notions you might have. I don't want to ruin anything for the audience, but I will say that the Driver is one of the most unique film characters to have come out in quite some time. Backing Gosling is a solid cast, from Bryan Cranston's role as a sleazy auto-shop owner to Albert Brooks' unique take as a Jewish mob boss and Carey Mulligan as the struggling mother next door whose family is ravaged by underworld politics.

The other pleasant surprise that Drive offered was how well the story is pieced together. For a movie called Drive, there's a surprisingly small amount of time that anyone spends in a car. The movie finds an excellent balance of giving the testosterone-driven action movie masses what they want in the form of super-violent fight scenes and bloody Mafia dirty dealings while still fleshing out the characters in subtle ways that speak louder than you would initially think. And it does it all in less than two hours.

I was honestly blown away by this movie. It's one of my favorite movies of 2011. I caution the faint of heart against this movie for some graphic violence, but if you're looking for an action movie with real talent behind it, I can't recommend any movie more highly. I give it 9 and a half scorpion jackets out of 10.