“DRIVE” CARVES FILM NICHE

DRIVE

Starring Ryan Gosling,

Carey Mulligan,

Bryan Cranston,

Albert Brooks,

Oscar Isaac,

Ron Perlman

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

Written by Hossein Amini

Based on the book by James Sallis

Running time 100 mins.

Rated R

          One of the best movies of the year.

          Like Jean Reno in “The Professional,” Ryan Gosling turns in an immediate cult classic performance with “Drive.” Like Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver,” Gosling’s unnamed driver is an understated potentially career-defining role.

          Upshot: Part-time movie stunt driver moonlighting as freelance robbery wheel-man develops relationship with woman, thereby becomes vulnerable, and has to keep work-related danger from spilling into personal life.

          The performances are everything in “Drive.” Primarily Gosling’s. I just saw him a few weeks ago in “Crazy, Stupid, Love.” If you want a lesson in acting, watch that movie and then this one. Riveting. Unique in film. Right up there with Toshiro Mifune (whose samurai in “Yojimbo” Eastwood modeled his Man with No Name in “A Fistful of Dollars”), even Steve McQueen, and Lee Marvin. Gosling understands apparently better than anyone else in movies that stillness is his ally.

          “Drive” flat-out looks like a movie from somebody with a vision. We’re hooked before the credits even come up. I love when a movie can do that.

          The car chases beat “Bullit” and “The French Connection” combined, and at least two of the supporting roles will likely get some Oscar buzz: Albert Brooks in a terrific piece of casting as an L.A. mob boss, and Bryan Cranston as a sort of mentor-figure to the driver.

          For no discernible reason, the filmmakers choose a retro-‘80s aesthetic. The poster looks right out of 1986, and a scene full of synthesizer sounds could have come from a quarter-century ago as well. Chalk that up toward vision.

          Ditto for the hardcore violence. And it isn’t even superfluous. Everything in the movie is there for a reason. Feels like it anyway, so that’s good enough.

          Every once in a while a great movie comes out of nowhere fully formed from Zeus’s thigh. One based neither on a comic book nor TV show. One without hype, and no burger franchise tie-in. “The Hitcher” was like that. And “Taken.” (That’s got one of the best tag-lines I’ve ever heard: “They took his daughter. He’ll take their lives.”) Actually I think “Taken” did advertise Liam Neeson-inspired chili-cheese fries. But “Drive” won’t steer you wrong.