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Health & Fitness

MOVIE REVIEW: Drive

A film review of Drive (2011), starring Ryan Gosling. Put away the theatrics and immerse yourselves into the slickest and best looking film of the year.

This weekend I was stuck between two movies to see. On one hand, there was Killer Elite. On the other hand, Drive. Both seem alike on the surface, but they're both geared in different directions. Killer Elite, more to the "Michael Bay blew my head up and I like it" genre folks. Drive, more to the "artistic" going audience. That's not to say one group couldn't enjoy the other. I'm sure Killer Elite is a blast, but I couldn't pass up a chance to see a film I wasn't expecting to receive a major release in this country.

Drive stars the likes of Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Albert Brooks, and Hellboy himself Ron Perlman. While the acting isn't necessarily the film's strongest point, it does more than enough to do its job. The biggest mistake anyone going to this movie will make is that they will assume, being named Drive, that there will be a lot of action packed driving sequences. There just isn't, and I for one don't care. While people could look at Bullit, Vanishing Point, or even Death Proof, as a source for what this film could be considering the name, it's all irrelevant. Within ten minutes of watching this movie you are hooked into the city of Los Angeles, its film noire qualities, and music that sounds right out of the 1980's. It is a basket weave of things that should feel cliché, but it never does, and you beg for more and more of it.

For all the Fast and the Furious folks whom I've offended yet still find themselves reading to this point, here's why you should see this film. It doesn't take a car chase, explosions, or Vin Diesel to make a good car movie. I walked into this movie having watched one trailer and not understanding a thing about what the plot could be. The plot is straightforward. It isn't dynamic. It's not shocking how it unfolds, but damn does it ever ramp up the tension from start to finish. What makes this movie so special is the sheer presentation of the movie. It looks and sounds better than any movie I've ever watched. Personally, it trumped Wong Kar-wai's Chungking Express in cinematography. A feat I thought I would never say. It's stunningly beautiful.

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While the driving isn't there in bulk, the violence is. Even the way the violence is show in this film has a beautiful quality about it. To watch the driver's jacket start so pristine and slowly become an oil and blood soaked mess perfectly attributes to the way the character has spiraled into criminality and chaos. From toothpicks to a hammer. From a stock car, with dreams of making it to the big time, to a shattered 1973 Chevrolet Chevelle. Still picking Jason Statham over Ryan Gosling?

Sure, Killer Elite has its trailers and commercials all over the place. That's the nature of films such as that. Play a vintage rock song and have the actors cascading through fireballs before the title sequence hits. If not for YouTube, I wouldn't even have known Drive existed. That to me might be what makes this film even more perfect than what it is. It's like the short film, C'était un Rendezvous. Not many people know about it except the hardcore car and racing enthusiasts. It is a film that will be sought after and cherished by those who've done their homework to find it. Appointing myself as spokesperson for the select who've seen it, I say this is the way it should be. I don't want to have the idiotic Fast and the Furious crowd bandwagoning a film like this one. It's over their head. It wouldn't be appreciated because it doesn't have enough tire smoke, or fine actors like Vin Diesel. What this film is all about is minimalist immersion. You sit back in your seat, and are instantly swept away by a visual masterpiece. Nothing more. Nothing less. Drive is a thing of beauty.

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