Drive: Probably not going to get any Oscars

**This review contains spoilers**

"If I drive for you, you give me a time and a place. I give you a five-minute window, anything happens in that five minutes and I'm yours no matter what. I don't sit in while you're running it down; I don't carry a gun... I drive."

You know how sometimes you see something and you are that miffed with it you need to get your thoughts down quickly despite it being pretty late in the evening? Well I'm having an episode like that now.
Orange Wednesday is a pretty good day to go and see a movie with a friend. Not only is it cheap it's also pretty cool to have the chance to see a film Empire magazine rated 4 out of 5 stars. Empire, I used to base my how film viewing around your reviews. I used to trust them with my movie going life. Seems that was a bad idea as tonight I went to see Drive. Empire magazine owes me nearly two hours of my life back.
Cineworlds write up of the film Drive on it's website is as follows (with me adding my two cents) -

A getaway man drives for his life in this relentless, rubber-burning action flick.

About 4 times. Only once do I remember rubber burning.

By day, the silent, nameless Driver (Ryan Gosling) is a stuntman who spins wheels and flips cars for Hollywood films. By night, he's a much in-demand getaway man who navigates the labyrinthine streets of LA with speed and ice-cool precision.

He also has the worst acting skills I've ever seen. It was probably for the best he stayed silent.

The Driver's reserve melts a little for his neighbour Irene (Carey Mulligan), but he exposes a well-hidden vulnerability when he agrees to help her jailbird ex-husband out of a tight spot with the mob.

I spent the whole of this film trying to remember where I knew Carey Mulligan from and the I realized she played Sally Sparrow in the Doctor Who fan favourite episode "Blink". She just looks sad a lot in this. Probably annoyed she is acting and Ryan Gosling is just pretending to be a plank of wood.

A double-cross then leaves him with only one option - put the pedal to the metal and drive for his life!

See above for how many times we actually see him drive. And not very fast either I might add.

Cult Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn ('Bronson', 'Valhalla Rising') announces his Hollywood arrival in style with this tough thriller inspired by the 1968 Steve McQueen classic 'Bullitt'.

You what? Tough thriller inspired by the 1968 Steve McQueen classic 'Bullitt'!?! Is Nicolas Winding Refn taking the piss or something? Fair play to him for 'Bronson' as that is a fantastic film but to compare Drive with a classic Steve McQueen film is a bit mental. Both Hossein Amini and James Sallis (the films writers) seem to of got inspiration from the PS2 game Grand theft Auto: Vice City for this film.

It's also Brit-actress Carey Mulligan's first full-on action film

And probably her last.

while Albert Brooks and 'Hellboy' star Ron Perlman get the bad-guy roles.

And both fail to pull this film out of the dismal hole that is sinks in to. In fact this is the worse film I've ever seen Ron Pearlman in and I've seen him in Police Academy: Mission to Moscow. As for Albert Brooks I enjoyed him much more in Finding Nemo.While I thought the trailer for this film actually looked pretty cool as it suggested it to be a film comprised of many action scenes it goes to show how smart cutting and incorrect marketing can work in trailers. Having raised this subject with a friend of mine he pointed out to me that an American woman has sued FilmDistrict (the films distributor) due to suffering "damages", feeling that the previews were misleading. She stated its distributor marketed Drive as similar to the Fast and the Furious film series, and, in a bait and switch act, gave her a motion picture with little racing.
One thing that was unexpected and really enjoyed was the sudden amount of gore as Ryan Gosling goes on a revenge fuelled rampage. Broken skulls, throats cut, blood everywhere and a cracking head shot that would make Quentin Tarantino wince. Don't let on to anyone but I enjoyed the 80's style soundtrack.

Anyway as you can see I wasn't really taken with this as I just couldn't get my head round a film that was called Drive that had hardly any driving in it. The friend I was with though really enjoyed it so maybe it's just me being a boring git. The general consensus having looked online is that this is a great film.
On the plus side though it's now my turn to pick a film next Orange Wednesday I go to (in fact it's two if I remember correctly) and after seeing the reaction of my friend during some of the gory bits of this film I reckon it might have to be "The Thing".

until next time.