The Philippine Online Chronicles

I've been craving for an action movie that is a 'thinking' film in spite of the gore and violence associated with the genre. Then Drive rolled in, as if on cue. Despite my reservations and protestations on the Cannes-winning film, I am forced to concede that it deserves a place in the pantheon of great action films.

At first, Drive (directed by Nicolas Winding Refn) appears to be a typical car chase flick in the vein of The Fast and the Furious, taking cues from video games like Grand Theft Auto. Ryan Gosling's character as The Driver may be your typical helter-skelter getaway driver for the urban mafia who eventurally betrays his bosses and kills 'em all in revenge. There, however, the similarities between Drive and your usual car chase film screech to a halt. If you're a fan of the usual and oft-repeated sequences and storylines, you'll find Drive disappointing.

I marvel at how Drive tweaked the usual storyline of car chase films into being a character study. Veering away from out-of-this-world sequences, Drive shifts to dwelling on the real-life drama of syndicated crime and how one man attempts to escape its evils by steering away from it and destroying all the villains in the process.

The character of The Driver is, perhaps, Ryan Gosling's best performance yet. He maintains his trademark poker-face acting sans all bombast. Under the hood of this 'friendly neighbor' act, however, lurks a beast on a rampage to make crime pay. The Driver's character development was simple, told through great cinematography (despite misplaced emphasis in some scenes) and Gosling's subtlety and lack of rhetoric (despite open displays of violence).

The car chase scenes here may not be as frantic and gripping as those in stereotypical counterparts; in one sequence, The Driver corners his prey through a simple T-bone maneuver. Despite its title, Drive is powered not by car chases but by how the characters are meticulously injected into the plot. And even though the film hits the dual speed bumps of inconsistent pacing and an anticlimactic resolution, Drive has characters that connect the dots of the plot, a difficult accomplishment in scriptwriting.

Drive may not fit with the typical action films shown in the Philippines, and in fact was only given a limited release here, but it will attract Pinoy movie fans who want to watch something out of the ordinary.

Images from cinematic trailer here under fair use.