Drive (2011)

Watched ‘Drive’ (2011) on Netflix.

Ryan Gosling plays a Hollywood stunt driver, also a mechanic, who moonlights as a getaway driver.

It’s strange that the movie did not give the driver, the protagonist, any name at all. Though all the other characters have names.

Yet another crime and heist movie. Made a pain in the ass by reticent narrative. (Why not go completely reticent and not make the movie at all?) it’s mostly a silent movie with one or two dialogues dropped in by accident.

After a point I stopped caring what was going to happen.

So this driver becomes close to the wife of a criminal who is in prison. Irene is the woman played by Carey Mulligan. When the husband whose name is Standard, is released, he is bullied to commit a robbery by some men who he owes protection money while in prison. 

The Driver chooses to help by becoming the getaway driver, out of his soft corner for Irene.

But during the robbery, the store owner shoots Standard. Also there is a second car nearby wanting to snatch the stolen money bag. Driver drives away. It turns out some Jewish mobsters his employer is connected had planned the heist. The money belonged to someone from the east coast Italian mafia who had stashed away all that cash in a store. The Jewish mobsters in Los Angeles had learnt of it and tried to steal it. Now the Jewish mobsters must eliminate the driver and anyone who is linked with it, so they will not be able to lead the east coast mob to them.

Anyway, the driver manages to be a step ahead of them and kill them all, T-bone the mobsters car in a beach from the highway, fatally stab another, and drive away, leaving behind Irene and her son, having ensured their safety.

Some lines I noted…

‘My name is Standard Gabriel’

‘Where is the deluxe version?’

‘Chevy Impala, the most popular car in the State of California’ (and therefore least noticeable, which is why driver chooses this car for his shady activities)

‘What's a Jew doing running a pizzeria?’

‘They call me a fucking kike’

Kike - a contemptuous term used to refer to a person of Jewish religion or descent

‘2000 heists a year in this city, he has to pick the wrong one’

‘Nature's miracle once more 

Will light the world 

But this light 

Is not for those men

Still lost in 

An old black shadow’

Ryan Gosling while shooting puts on a rubber mask that has been molded to have the features of the star he is doubling for. Interesting, didn’t know this.

A T-bone accident is one where the front of one car or truck crashes into the side of another vehicle. Broadside accidents most often occur at intersections when one of the drivers fails to stop at a stop sign or traffic light, or otherwise fails to yield the right-of-way to the other driver.

#westerncinema