This isn't a review. But sometimes, when I watch a movie that has been as tremendously hyped and lauded as Drive - and end up not being half as thrilled - it gets me wondering. "Screenwriter me" and "audience me" want to understand why it didn't click for us.
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| Yeah, I'm wondering, too. |
The film is everything the reviewers proclaim it to be, it's exceedingly stylish, it's all around beautifully shot with those intense 80s colors. Ryan Gosling gives a wonderfully brooding performance - he doesn't need words, he's got Steve McQueen charisma to spare. So the plot is pretty standard crime-gone-wrong fare with a few mafia dudes and people that need to be "taken care of" - I don't mind. So this expert driver doesn't actually make much use of his one super-great expertise and instead of a car he relies on foot, hammer, shotgun, metal rod and some such to solve problems - I can still live with that.
And I generally appreciate films where I can bathe in the filmmakers obvious passion for film making. Tarantino flicks work that way for me - I may not always agree with his choices - but the sheer joy for film making that oozes from his choices is usually worth the ticket alone. In Drive, Nicolas Winding Refn, clearly shows that passion and splashes it with that type of joy. But where, in a Tarantino flick, you get great characters or, in a Guy Ritchie flick, you get it all with a wink - in this film that part simply doesn't work ... unfortunately, I believe, it all comes down to character.
Drive's "man with no name" isn't a sociopath - although he certainly does act like it a few times. That leaves us with him being a psychopath. Which is, per se, entirely fine - I don't mind a film with a good psychopath lead! But the character needs to work - even if you don't reveal a back story, even if you don't explain the shit out of your character - the character needs to make sense in the context of the story, of the world he's in. This man with no name isn't making any sense. Why is he here? Why does he drive? Why does he moonlight as a getaway driver (and work as a mechanic and stunt driver)? To live in a crappy apartment? Why does he need the money? What does he do with the money? Why does the man who's obviously quite smart do what he does? So he has a heart, likes the kid, like the kid's mom - why the vicious elevator kill right in front of her eyes? What's his plan? I guess - from a screenwriter's point of view you'd end up saying "What does he want?" and "What does he need"?
I'll give you another "man with no name" - Clint Eastwood in Fistful of Dollars (actually, that famous man with no name was called Joe). Eastwood played another man with no backstory, a surely coldblooded kinda guy who merrily kills left and right. But Leone doesn't give you his man with no name as a sociopath or psychopath - he gives him straight-forward purpose - he's in it for the money. Late in the game you'll learn he actually also has a heart, a single moment, a single line is enough - but it allows us embrace the character more fully.
To me, what my Drive dilemma comes down to is this - IF the psychopath character was to be played as it has been, it should have made sense and that can only happen if the script gives the audience something to generate that sense. That didn't need to be cliche back story and morose monologues - but something, anything, a glimpse, a hint. One way to go might have been this: I would have loved to see this psycho character, with his obvious affection for mother and son, trying to hide his psycho streak from them - a lovely conflict, a hope of redemption, a glimmer of a life together ... all goes bust, of course - but I would have gone with the character, I would have rooted for him, I would have hoped with him. As is, I just watched him, great stares, nice style, lovely white satin jacket and that golden scorpion ... lots of style over emotion, unfortunately.
Alrighty then, I would expect there to be some serious hammer bashing coming up. With a whopping 93% on the Rotten Tomatoes meter, I must be wrong ... right? So bring on your comments! ... oh, before you start bashing, I just checked "A Fistful of Dollars" - Rotten Tomatoes has it at 98%, so there.
4 comments:
I haven't seen it. I have seen people gushing about how wonderful it is.
By the sound of it I wouldn't like it - I like things to make sense too.
Maybe it was style over substance?
Hi there.
Thanks goodness... thought I and the friend I went with were the only two people in the universe who weren't impressed with it (see my review).
It had a nice feel but... I dunno... no feeling?
Pleased to find out I'm not such an alien after all. ;-)
I don't get the complaints about the driver being a shallow character. For me this movie was all about disappointing the audiences expectations and to defy genre conventions. You don't get to see long highspeed carchases, you don't get to see goofy gunfights with lots of hunchmen dying without any blood being spilled and you also don't get to see the tragic backgroundstory of a compelling(anti)hero.
There is more than one way to tell a story and I see this movie more in the tradition of Brechts epic theater in the way that it doesn't let the audience immerse itself completly into the story. I found it to be a different and fresh take on a old and simple story.
Have to agree, Daniel. I saw this after a few beers, which usual makes me a hyper-critical know-all when I'm watching a film -- I've had to climb down afterwards a couple of times, 'Wire in the Blood' (which I suspect you'd love) being my worst miscalculation. But 'Drive' seemed unjustifiedly convinced of its own importance. Sterile and, in some respects -- for a self-consciously 'cool' film -- actually clunkily done. I thought Winding Refn's 'Bronson' was the work of a gifted filmmaker, but this totally missed the mark. It aspires to that existentialist (or is it just emotionally autistic?) quality of films like 'Thief' (the soundtrack is even a knock-off of Tangerine Dream), 'The Getaway' and 'Point Blank' but has none of the social awareness -- and plain goddamned humanity -- that gave these films their resonance.
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