Drive

I don't know if it was my restless mood or just the movie being unnecessarily slow for me. Sometimes I even wondered if the picture was stuck. It has its charm and atmosphere though. It may be art in its own way, but it lacks excitement. Ryan Gosling has done better work, in my opinion. Of course, it's not his fault. Unfortunately, the script doesn't allow him to show his full glory. Unfortunately, I see it as just average... 3 stars. (03/22/2012)

For me, a completely bombastic demonstration of what a director with a vision can do from forgettable genre spectacles. Refn projected his fascination with inaccessible heroes, which is prolonged by passion and also by the fascination with stories in which the hero selflessly sacrifices himself. His pagan relishing of vibrations long after the main action of the shot is once again pure happiness, not to mention the beautifully shot car chases and captivating atmosphere of a Los Angeles night. Again, it should be underlined that for Refn, there is no main logic and story - these are just secondary links to the extremely strong scenes elaborated down-to-the-last detail. I look forward to the listing of all the nonsense that analyst viewers can bear, thinking that there is some consistency and story refinement in Drive. What fascinates me to the core: although this time the characters really talk a lot (they are Americans after all), the essentials about their motifs are expressed by Refn with a hint, gesture, facial expression. He simply remained Nordic, even in a field that is supremely "Hollywood". While it's a film with a completely accessible story, Refn made it into an uncontracted author's manifesto and a festival of subversive image-sound connectivity. I just love that Danish boy! Maybe he should make a Bond film. (09/07/2011)

The third viewing at the cinema definitely confirmed for me that trying to decide between four and five stars is pointless here. Drive is a challenge for film connoisseurs. It is something to discuss, to examine shot by shot and line by line. It’s impossible to put it into a qualitative category, and it’s impossible not to admire it. It is a hypnotically calm and slow opus that concurrently boils over with emotion and suspense. It works with several genres, but it cannot be clearly classified as belonging to any of them. The film keeps the greatest distance from the main character, not letting us understand him or feel his relationship with the girl, for whose protection he resorts to extreme, graphic violence. Though this violence thus becomes shockingly gratuitous, it is irresistibly cathartic in contrast to the romantic poetics that surround it. Through its extravagant camerawork and music, the film conceals the importance of the dialogue, which is the pillar of its story and is served sparingly, almost in fragments, but it perfectly defines the characters immediately with the first line or two. The choice of actors is original and unexpected, and with artistry reminiscent of Tarantino, the director pulls them out of their status as fades stars and eternal players of supporting roles and has them embody characters that will forever be embedded in your memory. Nicolas Winding Refn has what it takes to be the next Tarantino. However, Drive still isn’t his Pulp Fiction. For that, he will need more pieces on the chessboard and a more complex story. (11/22/2011)

It’s hypnotic (almost everyone talked about the soundtrack after leaving the movie theater), clings to details (cinematography, sound), and constantly goes against established audience expectations. When I got up from my seat, sweat was pouring off me and it wasn't just the heat in the movie theater. (09/14/2011)

Drive is a boring film. A long, drawn-out, empty and uninspiring bore that offered its best at the beginning (the scene of hiding and dodging police cars) and then didn't come up with anything I would call interesting. I think we can agree that the story is dull and boring to the point of shame, but I can’t say that it was filmed in such a way that it would stop bothering me. The fault is probably with my receiver, but I didn't see anything special. In fact, I didn't even hear it - the much-vaunted soundtrack consists, in my opinion, of only a few extremely strange and unpleasant songs, the title track being particularly repulsive. What's next in the film? Just the violence. A head shot, a head smashed, a head crushed, a fork in the eye, a knife in the throat, a razor in the forearm... And the camera shows everything. So? What of it? I feel that Nicolas Winding Refn is just a perverted guy who revels in these brutalities, and while the violence in the previous film, Valhalla Rising, had its purpose (although it really didn't have to absolutely show everything), here it was totally unnecessary, and I would even say purposeful. The last nail in the already very thoroughly hammered coffin for me was the unsympathetic Ryan Gosling. A big disappointment. (03/13/2012)