DRIVE [revew]....by IMTHATDUDE

This movie was more ridiculous than Sam Jackson playing Martin Luther the King on Broadway – oh, it’s true, it’s damned true – http://www.themountaintopplay.com/index.html

Yup. I totally see it…? Nick Fury as Reverend Dr. King. Right. Sam would be a miscast for Malcolm X much less Dr. King.

But back to the flick. Drive. Drive what? Drive me to tears (PAUSE - from boredom, I mean). Drive went from action-thriller with tons of potential to hurry up and wait. On the bright side, anybody who has ever had an awkward pause and enjoyed it would LOVE this movie. And for everyone else who has experienced that awkwardness (read: us normal folk), you will undoubtedly find those pauses… well… pretty freaking awkward. Awkward like hearing the “I Have a Dream Speech” interlaced with a healthy plethora of “n-words” and “mutha f*ckas!”

VITALS

Nicholas Winding Refn (Valhalla Rising) - Director

Hossein Amini (Killshot, Shanghai) - Writer
Ryan Gosling (Crazy, Stupid Love) – The Driver
Carey Mulligan (WS2: Money Never Sleeps) - Irene
Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) - Shannon
Albert Brooks (The In-Laws) - Bernie
Ron Pearlman (Sons of Anarchy) - Nino
Christina Hendricks (Mad Men) – Blanche

IF YOU MUST KNOW:

A stunt driver, The Driver (Gosling) is a getaway driver to make ends meet… I guess. He does precious little talking, even when spoken to, so I guess that helps make him mysterious. Turns out, he’s just crazy, as anybody would think if it took him THAT long to respond to direct conversation. The Driver crosses paths with his fetching neighbor, Irene (Mulligan), and her son. Little does he know the woman he’s semi-secretly crushing on has a baby-daddy coming home from prison. Being the good (and terrible) guy that he is, the Driver helps out his neighbor’s baby daddy and ends up involved in an intermittently violent and lethal turf war. People get shot, stabbed, strangled and stabbed, and kicked to death, and spit on (which would kill me – in which case, I’d come back to life and shoot, stab, strangle and stab and then kick to death the nasty bastard that spat on me).

SPOILER ALERT: There’s ONE car chase. The other scene was so effing lame, you can’t conceivably label it an actual car chase.

Look, the movie wasn’t terrible, but the name of this crap is DRIVE. Gosling had 2 scenes where he was behind the wheel of a car in a tense situation. And, I’ve said it before… so you know how important this is when I say it again… the way a movie ends is just as important as the rest of the film. If you don’t believe me, go watch Kill Bill Part I and then watch the Matrix: Reloaded. Endings kill films; unfortunately for Drive, the middle and the beginning did, too.

My recommendation is that they rename this movie. It’s an easy one. They only have to drop one letter. Drop the “v” from Driver and then we have some truth in the advertising.

ImTHATdude gives Drive: 2 (and a movie violation – get it? Movie, moving… HA! Ehhhh, Whuddyouknowfromfunny.)

RATING SYSTEM:
5 = You should be about halfway to the theatre by now… Well… GET!
4 = Definitely worth the bread. Niiice.
3 = I won’t cuss anybody out and demand my paper back.
2 = Somewhere SOUTH of under-whelmed./I know it has a pulse, but…
1 = Not a good look. They played me AND I played myself.