I had read a lot of good things about Drive so was excited as the movie started.
The opening scene is quite edgy, where the driver helps a couple of robbers get away from a score, avoiding police cars and helicopters! There are very few lines spoken on screen for the first 10 minutes. The driver is a quiet man, man of action.
From there on, the movie flattens out. I was expecting another score that the driver takes on, but instead he meets a young mother and her son who stay next door. He seems to enjoy the company and starts caring for them. We learn that the driver works at a garage and and as a stuntman for movies, while moonlighting as a getaway driver by night. His boss at the garage borrows money from a mob boss to fund a race car which he thinks, with the driver behind the wheels, shall reap in the greens.
The driver decides to help out the woman's husband, who, while in jail, has gotten into some trouble with some Albanian gang over protection money. So they tell him to rob a pawn shop. But the score goes wrong, when the man is double crossed. It turns out the mob boss had planned the double cross from the beginning, hiring the Albanians for the job. From here on, the film turns violent. The driver is capable of killing with his bare hands, or with any accessories available. He wants to protect the woman and the kid at any cost. Eventually, he annihilates the mob boss and his gang and the Albanians and gets hurt pretty bad in the process. He leaves.
The film is stylish and colourful, with minimum dialogues but rich visuals. The lack of words, it seems, is compensated by the violent encounters and a few car chases.
The violence is quite in the face, real, 'you want to look away but also want to see how it looks' kind.
Its about a getaway driver, a character otherwise not given much focus in many plots. The camera doesn't follow the man who robs the store, but stays with the driver, getting a little anxious with every passing minute.
'Drive' reminded me of 'A History of Violence', mainly due to the violence and similarities between the lead characters - the hidden killing streak, an inclination to live better, simpler lives and a violent past (which is not shown in 'Drive', but implied in my opinion).
I was expecting a more complicated plot, but the movie 'stays' with the driver, his perspective. (Its also based on a novel and stays close to the original course I guess)
