Drive

Samurai don’t wear a robe or carry a sword anymore, but they still exist. They wear driving gloves and carry a hammer to nail a bullet into a thug’s forehead.

“Drive”’s nameless anti-hero possesses the same focus, patience and loyalty of his feudal Japanese ancestors, and Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn shares the same pacing and cinematic flourish as his Asian, French and Italian counterparts.

Ryan Gosling plays the nameless Driver, a man blessed with intense focus and cool comfort under pressure. And if it were not obvious from his lack of a name, this is a man with no identity. He lacks the same social cues or even remotely human emotional responses as Alain Delon in “Le Samourai” or more recently George Clooney in “The American.” He doesn’t shake hands, he gives one word answers (if that), and yet he needs to maintain that control to do his job properly.

By day he’s a mechanic and movie stunt driver, and by night he drives getaway cars, first shown to us in a stunningly silent cat and mouse police chase in the opening scene.

It’s only when he meets Irene (Carey Mulligan) that he struggles to break out of his funk. We may even see him crack a smile as he chews his trademark toothpick, and Ryan Gosling has one knockout smile.

It’s part of the reason he’s so terrific here. Like Clooney in “The American,” the part is so subdued and empty, and Gosling is a wonderful actor capable of showing endearing charisma. Yet he remains a blank façade, containing his range as a performer until even the Driver has good reason to tremble.

He’s being hunted by a pair of mobsters (Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman) after a robbery gone wrong that now endangers the lives of Irene and her son.

This is textbook noir, but the film quickly revs from stark tension to hyper violence faster than you can shift gear from fourth to fifth.

“Drive” is steeped in an array of bloody elegance, cinematic minimalism and ‘80s electronica. Refn’s directing (which won him an award at this year’s Cannes) is as fine-tuned and tightly focused as his anti-hero. It’s arguably completely style over substance in a film that actually has more blood splattering than stunt driving, but a pulp film that doesn’t ask questions or speak when it doesn’t have to fits wonderfully with Driver’s immersed nature.

However, the film does have some depth, and it can be found not in the blood stained elevator carpet after Driver ruthlessly stomps a gangster’s skull, but in its rich supporting cast. Mulligan is warm, innocent and glowing in this colorful film. Bryan Cranston, who is arguably one of the best character actors in the movies today (he’s considered one of the best lead actors on TV), serves as Driver’s only believable friendship and form of backstory.

And best of all is Albert Brooks. I’ve read two reviews that both describe Brooks as “nebbish” with menace, and that sounds about right. His character is all about casual and personable appearances before he slits your wrists or stabs you in the neck. Brooks and his talkative, mixed personalities is the ideal counterpoint to Gosling’s stoicism, and the pair steals the show.

“Drive” is as sleek and stylish as it is stealthy and silent. It’s a bloody, intense action movie with a brooding and complex hero that sets it apart from anything in 2011. In the race for the year-end awards, “Drive” is the model to beat.

4 stars