'Drive' Leaves 'Fast and Furious' in the Dust

Drive is a rare gem, a Hollywood film that approaches a well-worn genre and brings a wholly new style and perspective to it. A thin plot is overcome by a masterful visual style, a dream cast and some truly great cinematic moments.

Made by Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn from a script by Hossein Amini, Drive finds a whole new way to tell a familiar L.A. underworld tale.

It's got elements of noir and '70s crime pictures, while the David Lynch influence is clear, as well. Throughout the movie, Los Angeles is photographed absolutely beautifully.

Drive stars Ryan Gosling as an unnamed protagonist known only as the Driver, who holds a relatively amorphous job that involves a working as a mechanic, a Hollywood stunt driver and, by night, as a getaway driver for criminals.

His boss in all three endeavors is Bryan Cranston, playing a sad sack who's somehow even more pathetic than his character in the early episodes of Breaking Bad. (The supporting cast is heavy with familiar faces from your favorite AMC and FX shows; in addition to Cranston, Christina Hendricks from Mad Men and Ron Perlman of Sons of Anarchy have parts, too.)

The film kicks off with a standout chase sequence, one of the most creatively staged in memory.

But this is no The Fast and Furious; for nearly an hour afterward, Drive resembles nothing so much as a European art film, as Gosling meets and romances his neighbor (Carey Mulligan), a young mother whose husband (Oscar Isaac) is nearing his release from prison. He also finds trouble with a local coterie of criminals, led by Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman.

Yes, there are action scenes, and yes, there are moments of shockingly graphic violence. But everything feels earned, and we're shown some truly amazing sights on the way through the story. (See one chase scene, in particular, that starts on the highway and proceeds into a Pacific Ocean that appears to come from nowhere.)

Gosling, in a quiet role, continues the hot streak that he's been on for the last year, coming off Blue Valentine and .

I'm not much of a fan of Mulligan—she has a tendency to sleepwalk through her movies looking sad-eyed—but she does better than usual here.

Casting Brooks in a dramatic role as a crime boss is such a masterful move that it's a wonder no one's done it since Steven Soderbergh's great Out of Sight, which was 13 years ago. He does well, even though the older he gets, the more Brooks starts to resemble Mike Ditka.

Perlman's character is underdeveloped, but it's really a great concept— he's a Jewish guy with an ethnic identity crisis who goes by the name Nino, runs a pizzeria, and frequently associates with Mafia figures.

And while it's always welcome to see Hendricks in a movie, she's not given a whole lot to do here.

After a summer of blowout action films that took very little care to make either their action or plot aspects make sense, it's refreshing to see a director so in-command as Refn is here. I've got a feeling we'll still be talking about Drive years from now.

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The Silver Screen Rating: 4.5 stars (out of 5)

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Roll Credits: Drive

Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Oscar Isaac, Albert Brooks, Ron Perlman, Bryan Cranston

Rated: R

Length: 1 hour 40 minutes

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Appearing at:

Regal Warrington Crossing 22—Click for showtimes.