Review of Drive

Drive is a movie where you will either love it, or hate it, depending on how well you can tolerate arthouse films. So be prepared(If you ever watch the movie), to see a bunch of scenes where the characters just stare at each other rather than actually talking to one another. Specifically Gosling's character and Mulligan's character. So there's not that much dialogue especially within the first 30 minutes. Even though I'm not a fan of arthouse movies, I loved this one. Though, the title and the way this is being marketed as is very misleading. I expected a movie with tons of action and cool car chasing scenes. That is not this movie. There's little action and really only two car chasing scenes. This movie focuses on the relationship between Gosling's character and Mulligan's character, for about the first hour. Then the last 40 minutes is just a lot of killing, a lot of the killings are graphic and extremely gory. The acting is terrific, the cast does a wonderful job but the two that stuck out the most were Gosling and Mulligan, surprisingly. They were both exceptional, and the chemistry between them was great. I just wish that they could have added another scene or two with Gosling's character and Irene(Mulligan) hanging out together or driving somewhere together to really make the relationship seem even more believable and stronger. I also wish that they would have given Gosling's character a name, he's only referred as "Driver" or "The Driver." I can see why they did that, I suppose it's probably better that they didn't give him a name but it would have been nice of them to give us a name. I admit I was pretty skeptic when I first heard Gosling playing this type of role, he proved me wrong. I actually can't picture anyone else doing this role but him. He ended up replacing Hugh Jackman, that was probably the best decision ever. I could not picture Hugh Jackman pulling off this type of role the way Gosling did. The story is simple and it kind of annoys me that people are saying this movie sucks because there was hardly a story. Sometimes a movie with a simple story can turn out to be an amazing film based on how well it's told and done. Other times a movie with a simple story can turn out to be total crap(Transformers Revenge of The Fallen). I mean no one seemed to care how Avatar hardly had a story, hell I didn't even care and I liked it. I didn't mind the simple story here because the movie was done so well. It was nicely shot especially during the two car chasing scenes. I especially liked the first car chase scene because you never left the car, it was filmed inside the car the whole time so it was nice to feel like you were part of that experience. The soundtrack for this movie was amazing, if the soundtrack for this movie is not nominated for best score I'm going to be upset. I loved the nice 80's like retro songs. Each song fit perfectly with each scene, and set a nice tone throughout the movie. I especially loved the song "A Real Hero" by College. That song just fit so perfectly with Gosling's character and actually added some depth to his character. Though the ending might have been disappointing for some, I liked the way it ended, and let me tell you it's not your normal Clichéd happy ending. It was actually very sad and different. People also seemed to complain about how awkward it was when Gosling and Mulligan stared at each other a lot without saying anything. I can see why people felt that way but it was really only awkward the first time they met and hung out together. Isn't that normal though? They both start to like each other but they're nervous so they stare, smile and laugh at each other. I think it added some realism to this movie. Another thing that seemed to bother people was that Gosling hardly said anything during the movie, especially when he was with Irene(Mulligan). This is true, but they purposely did that. He was originally suppose to talk a lot but they decided to cut away most of his lines, to make him seem more mysterious. I think it was a smart idea of them to do this, it fit well with the movie, and it gives you a chance to try and figure his character out yourself. What was his childhood like? What got him into driving? How did he learn to drive so well? Ect. There's really no wrong answers to those questions and I actually thought about this movie for about a week after I saw it, hell I'm still thinking about it. I think I went overboard with reviewing this movie, I could continue to go on forever talking about this movie and everything that I loved about it but I won't. People who disliked this movie are probably going to think I was on crack while I was watching it but this is a great movie.