Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Drive (2011) - Refn's muscle-flexing, über-cool audience favorite

5/10/2015

Drive (2011) - Refn's muscle-flexing, über-cool audience favorite

♥♥♥♥♥

2 Time Film Excess Award Winner:

Best Sound
Best Score: Cliff Martinez

2 Time Film Excess Nominee:

Best Sound (won)
Best Score: Cliff Martinez (won)

+ Best Car Movie of the Year


Ryan Gosling looking spiff on the poster for Nicholas Winding Refn's Drive

Ryan Gosling (The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)) empathetically embodies the nameless driver, who is a stunt driver in the day and chauffeurs thugs at night, and who gets involved with an ugly story as his beautiful neighbor and her son get threatened by some people her out-from-jail husband owes money.

Danish master filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn's (Pusher II (2004)) Drive is an adaptation of James Sallis' (Moth (1993)) 2005 novel of the same name by Iranian screenwriter Hossein Amini (47 Ronin (2013)). It is a supremely stylish, coolly subdued and yet very hard-hitting car movie/crime-thriller romance.
The film has a cool sound side, brutal effects and juicy characters played by an exciting cast: Ron Perlman (Skin Trade (2014)) as a Jewish gangster, and Albert Brooks (I Love You, Daddy (2017)) as his reluctant partner are great, and Oscar Isaac (Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)) and Christina Hendricks (Bad Santa 2 (2016)) also give very good performances in smaller parts. It can be quarry figuring out what Drive says (if anything) under its radiantly cool splendor: It is essentially about loss of innocence, I think, which is smushed away by an ugly, criminal world, and this is why Carey Mulligan (Never Let Me Go (2010)) plays the one character who sticks out in it. - Everyone else is - or is getting - mired in the filth already.
The film's celebrated synth-heavy, pop-electro score by Cliff Martinez (Spring Breakers (2012)) is an integrated part of the film's attractive, pulpy package: Drive often looks and sounds like that an adaptation of the popular console game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) might be like, stylistically paying tribute to the 1980s with a story that might as well take place in that decade, (it is quite universal really.)
For Refn, Drive is a recognizable continuation of his oevre about the knotty, violent-prone young man. It is also his international break-through, biggest triumph and most popular film to date, although it doesn't top three of his films in my book: Pusher II (2004), Valhalla Rising (2009) and Only God Forgives (2013).

Related posts:

Nicolas Winding Refn: 2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Only God Forgives (2013) - Violent beauty in Bangkok
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films - according to Film Excess
Bronson (2008) or, Violent Man
Bleeder (1999) - Refn's mysterious second film

Carey Mulligan and Ryan Gosling in probably the year's best movie kiss in Nicholas Winding Refn's Drive

Watch the great trailer for the movie here

Cost: 15 mil. $
Box office: 76.2 mil.$
= Big hit
[Refn won the Best Director award at Cannes, where Drive begun its very strong French reception that totaled 13.2 mil. $ (17 % of the total gross). It opened #2 in the US, where it racked in 35 mil. $ (46 % of the total gross).]

What do you think of Drive?
What is/are Refn's best film/s in your opinion?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (14-24)

5/10/2015

Drive (2011) - Refn's muscle-flexing, über-cool audience favorite

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Eagerly anticipating this week ... (13-24)

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