Drive is, in its way, a ‘chillwave’ movie, and not only because much of its soundtrack, as composed in a masterful score by Cliff Martinez, heavily draws on the chill/cold wave genre. Reminiscent, intentionally, of an idea of 1980’s films, as disparate as Bladerunner or Thief, director Nicolas Winding Refn’s third terrific film in three years (after Bronson and Valhalla Rising) is a further examination of the darkness of the male id, and the violence that can erupt from within, while the surface remains almost eerily placid. It’s hard to think of a better actor to portray this sort of character than Ryan Gosling, who has become the blank face of male anxiety over the last few years in a number of great roles. But don’t think that Drive is some sort of morbid archaeological dig into the ineffectual male; this isn’t some dreary indie movie heralding layabout schlubs. Drive, at its very black heart, is a superb addition to the best of the modern film noir tradition, and, in my eyes, pretty easily the best film of 2011.

Gosling plays an unnamed mechanic/stunt car driver who, when we are introduced to him, is at work on his second job, working as a driver-for-hire for criminals. He isn’t a criminal himself; his job is solely using his skills behind the wheel to drive the getaway car for a commission. He works, in all his jobs, for Shannon (Bryan Cranston), a striving garage owner with his own ties to the local mob, which is headed up by the mismatched partners Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks) and Nino (Ron Perlman). ‘Driver’, as we must refer to Gosling’s character, has no apparent aspirations in any of the jobs he works in. He seems, simply, to exist. His facade, however, begins to crack a bit when he meets his new next-door neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), a sweet young mother with a son at her hip and a husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac) in prison. Driver takes a shine to both Irene and her son, Benicio, and gradually ingratiates himself into their lives. The attraction between he and Irene is immediate, but, like all of Driver’s emotions, must remain buried beneath the surface, even as they share innumerable quiet glances in each other’s direction.

Just as Driver begins to feel as though he may have found himself a life to call his own, it’s all shaken by the news that Standard is being released from prison. Standard doesn’t trust Driver, but does not act upon it, hoping to start a new life for his family. Old debts are called in, however, and after Driver finds Standard beaten up in the hallway, and learns of the threat being put to Irene and Benicio, he offers to help Standard with the job he’s been given, a holdup of a local pawnshop. A third partner, Blanche (Christina Hendricks) is assigned to them, and, at first, the robbery seems to go off without a hitch… until it doesn’t. As in the best crime noir, things must fall apart, there must be double-crosses, misunderstandings, and, inevitably, revenge. Driver, looking to protect his new ‘family’, takes after the men who would threaten them, one after the other with scenes of sudden and shocking violence which not only cracks a few skulls, but Driver’s seemingly docile facade.

The story is simple, and engrossing. What sets Drive apart from so many other films of its ilk are the style of the film, with its overwhelming dose of neon-tinted dread, and the cast, all of whom are tremendous. Gosling, as seems to go without saying anymore, is the highlight, his usual chilly stoicism the perfect fit for Driver’s almost cyborg-like qualities. Mulligan, while not being given much to do beyond ‘object of affection’, is sweetly effective as the resigned Irene, and the ever-reliable Cranston is excellent as the beaten-down, chain-smoking loser Shannon. Both Ron Perlman and Oscar Isaac are very good in their limited roles, but the true revelation is Albert Brooks as local mobster Bernie Rose. Brooks, while a truly gifted comedian for over 40 years, has always maintained a reservoir of reserved hostility underneath the laughs, but here he is allowed to show all of his cards in a performance of exuberant menace, the perfect example of a vulgar man who will do anything for money, whether it be as a film producer or a local mob boss. Brooks never hits a false note, or tries too hard to ‘play the villain’. Bernie isn’t always a bad man, but he is more than willing to do bad things to keep himself above the fray.

While Drive wears its influences on its sleeve, the important thing to remember is that These Are Good Influences; the collective pedigree of cast, director, cinematic borrowings, references and allusions are all derived from an understanding of what makes cinema great. This film may not be for everyone, as it is often very violent, has long stretches of nearly no dialogue, and is so heavy with dread and menace that the only brief snatches of light which are allowed to break through are extinguished so quickly you may not even remember them. That’s what the best film noir does. It pulls up the pavement, not to reveal the beach underneath, but to show that it’s just more dirt. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Based on a controversial book by Sir Ranulph Fiennes, it opens in 1980 as mercenaries Statham and De Niro and their two colleagues take out a target. A year later, Statham is forced to take a job eliminating three ex-SAS agents for an exiled Oman sheik holding De Niro hostage, during which he encounters Owen, the chief enforcer for a secret society of former SAS operatives protecting their own.

The film’s overall tone is closer to The Bourne Identity than Death Race, which means few explosions but lots of gunfire, a couple car chases and some energetic fight scenes, the highlights being Statham and Owen’s brutal hospital brawl and a three-way third-act scuffle between Owen, a tied-up Statham and a British government agent involved in a convoluted bigger-picture scenario.

I can’t say Statham really stretches here, but he does at least get some chances to try, like during the excellent opening-act action when he discovers he’s killed the target right in front of the target’s young son, or in general when, during his subsequent retirement, he begins a relationship with a blonde and very beautiful Australian (Chuck’s Yvonne Strahovski, with too little to do).

Owen, on the other hand, is the main reason the film is more than just another Statham vehicle. He skillfully creates a character who’s intelligent, determined and very capable physically, and who carries a deep respect for his fellow former SAS members, going so far as to chastise young pub patrons for not respecting the news about one of his fallen comrades. Watching him here makes me just a little sadder that he turned down the chance to play James Bond.

In any case, the film is most interesting when he and Statham share scenes, and I don’t just mean their initial hospital mêlée, but their subsequent, dialogue-driven moments. This includes a nicely tense confrontation in Owen’s home, as well as Owen’s interrogation of Statham, which features perhaps the film’s best shot in Owen’s beautifully wry reaction to Statham asking to be untied.

De Niro has far less screen time but still comes off very well, both as Statham’s good-hearted mentor, and the macho badass he becomes when stalking around with a machine gun. As the other mercenary members, Dominic Purcell (Prison Break) sports a hideous ’70s mustache and oozes ladies-man sleaze, while Aden Young (The Tree) makes next to no impression, though his character does get the admittedly neat task of remote-controlling a tanker truck. - [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Patient zero is Gwyneth Paltrow, who, soon after returning home from Japan to her husband (Matt Damon) and kids, collapses and dies, as do people in London and Hong Kong. From there Center for Disease Control officials (Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet) and a World Health Organization epidemiologist (Marion Cotillard) try to get a handle on the lethal and fast-spreading virus.

Some may appreciate Soderbergh’s clinical approach to the material versus getting another find-a-cure thrill ride a la Outbreak. I agree it helps make the breakdown of society that occurs feel a little more realistic, and thus more frightening. We learn a few statistics, like how many times a day we touch our faces, and Scott Burns‘ script makes light of things you might never have thought of, like the government running out of body bags and how long it would take to create and distribute a vaccine.

But it all but deprives the film of a soul. We never really come to care about anyone, aside from Damon, who registers the strongest as a man trying to protect his daughter, and provides the film its only true emotionally resonant moment near the end. Cotillard’s subplot not only wastes her talent but gets wrapped up flatly. The only character here who even kind of pops is Jude Law’s bugger of a British blogger who’s out to exploit the epidemic.

I do have to give Soderbergh credit for the technical side of things. His camerawork is crisp, his editing smooth and he moves things along at a brisk pace. (It’s interesting to note how vibrant the colors are in the security camera footage of Paltrow versus the washed out palette of the rest of the film.) As well I liked how he ended things by showing us exactly what led to the epidemic. Yet I imagine what most people will take away from the film is the sight of Paltrow getting her head sawed open. – [DVD]

Horror/Thriller

Rated PG-13

DVD Release Date: 1/3/12

It does, however, employ his oft-used theme of children encountering supernatural or fantastical elements, focusing on a little girl (Bailee Madison) forced to go live with her architect father (Guy Pearce) and stepmother (Katie Holmes) in a 19th century Rhode Island mansion the pair is restoring, where she becomes the target of tiny goblin-like creatures inhabiting the ash pit in the home’s basement.

As long as we don’t actually see the creatures, the film really isn’t that bad. Director Troy Nixey succeeds, at least for a while, in making the big old house itself nicely creepy, especially in any scene with Bailee in bed, bathed in the light of her carousel lamp. And he gets a great little actress in Bailee, who convincingly conveys a decent range of emotions.

Thing is, the creatures themselves, when we finally do see them, really aren’t that scary. Oh, they’re ugly, hunchbacked little CGI things who can swarm all over a man and nearly kill him, but they look just a little too adorable. The only time they’re even kind of frightening is in the drawings of them Holmes discovers at one point, or when we hear their whispers emanating from the ash pit.

Pearce and Holmes do adequate work, and the script manages to eke out some genuine emotional resonance with the resentment-at-the-stepmother angle. But we know from the start that the girl will warm up to Holmes. Sigh. If only del Toro himself had been the director. Then I might really have been afraid of the watching this movie, in the light or the dark. – [DVD]

For those just tuning in, the films employ a simple, sequel-friendly formula: a character experiences a premonition of a horrendous disaster that he, or she, and a group of other characters are then able to survive, but who are subsequently stalked and picked off by Death itself (whom we never actually see) in elaborately entertaining, and gruesome, Rube Goldberg-esque ways.

The tragedies in the previous flicks involved a passenger jet, a freeway pile-up, a roller coaster and, last and extremely least, a NASCAR race. This one tops them all with a truly terrifying suspension bridge collapse, a catastrophe foreseen by a company drone (Nicholas D’Agosto), who, along with a few lucky co-workers, learns what happens when you don’t die when you’re supposed to.

Beyond that, what helps make this a better installment is the introduction of the idea (via the wonderfully creepy Tony Todd) that the survivors can escape death by killing someone else. There’s no real deep discussion about it, nor is it much of a surprise that one of the characters actually attempts to do it, but its presence nonetheless adds some emotional weight to the gory goings-on.

Speaking of which, a good deal more energy and creativity has gone into how Death takes out the survivors (acupuncture, Lasik surgery, a gymnast really sticking her landing), and the script cleverly plays with our beliefs as to what exactly in a sequence is going to kill a character. There are also some nice little touches that give the movie some personality, like the teddy bear during the Lasik scene.

Director Steven Quale does a solid job for his first feature, wisely hewing closer to the darker tone of the first film, and skillfully establishing a superbly sinister atmosphere (watch as D’Agosto wanders through a restaurant kitchen that now seems to contain myriad means of death). But he and screenwriter Eric Heisserer save the best for last, unveiling during the fiery finale a totally awesome twist, one that I never even considered, and one that proves the franchise still has lots of life left in it. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Horror/Thriller

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 12/27/11