Drive (2011)

Drive came out of a specific cultural moment for Nicolas Winding Refn, arriving just after the critical and commercial success of Valhalla Rising (2009) and marking his first proper American studio production. The film is adapted from James Sallis's slim 2005 crime novel of the same name, with a screenplay by Hossein Amini that strips the source material down to something closer to a mood piece than a conventional thriller. Shot largely on location in Los Angeles, the production leaned heavily into the city's neon-lit nocturnal atmosphere, drawing conscious comparisons to 1980s European action cinema and films like Walter Hill's The Driver (1978). At $15 million, it was a modest but precisely controlled budget, and the film went on to earn nearly $80 million worldwide, making it a genuine crossover success for an arthouse-adjacent American production.

When Ryan Gosling said "..." I felt that Honestly? I'm really not sure exactly why but I absolutely LOVED Drive. I think that intro segment is probably the greatest intro in cinema history. The script in Drive is really light but it's the cinematography that carries it along with that incredible Kavinsky soundtrack. Oscar Isaac is great here alongside Carey Mulligan. This is also arguably the film that relaunched Bryan Cranston's career after Malcolm in the Middle. DRIVE is flawless.

Rating: ★★★★★  | Year: 2011  | Watched: 2025-04-06

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