Drive review

I saw this yesterday at the cinema. To be brief: the plot was nothing special, the dialogue was not particularly intelligent, and the end could have been stronger. BUT! The cinematography was brilliant. Everything had impact, the action was tense, the violence shocking. You might not remember very much of it the next day, but while you're watching it you'll be totally engrossed.

To go into a little more detail: you might say it wasn't a plot driven movie, but a character driven one, although the protagonist always remains something of an enigma. No-one spoke very much, the movie driven more by action than words, but I feel that when they did speak the dialogue could have used more wit or flavour. Nevertheless, the cast's body language told you all you needed to know, and did a better job of conveying some things than trying to put them in words would have.

The protagonist's reasons for his actions are not explicitly explained, which is not necessarily a bad thing, except that near the end I really didn't understand his thinking. It left me personally feeling that the end didn't make very much sense.

As I said before, the movie really drew you in. While other movies will have a VTOL jet fighter chasing down a truck and blowing the hell out of a highway, Drive has no need for such theatrics, and the simple act of waiting outside a building, or driving slowly down a street with a patrol car going in the other direction, are tense moments that have you glued to the screen. And when violence does erupt, it is simply shocking.

The actual violent content is not high; in terms of volume it is far less than a typical action movie, and in terms of content it is not any more gory or offensive than a lot of things I've seen, and yet in this movie a single slap, that I was expecting no less, made me start. You might say it makes violence actually feel violent.


So overall, I give it a 9 out of 10. Not a great story, but a great piece of cinema.