5 Minute Disaster...

A little while back a saw a movie that had me convinced that it was going to be the biggest victor of the Oscar's. Unfortunately it wasn't and the movie was left fading in the background and didn't bring home the best sound editing nomination. Although it has claimed a lot of 'best directing' prizes in many other prestigious award ceremonies like Cannes and the CFCA.
This amazingly mellow but yet very subtly action packed film is 'Drive'.

The Plot: The protagonist simply known as 'The Driver' (Ryan Gosling) is a hollywood stunt driver by day ad a getaway driver by night. He always gives a 5 minute window to his clients from the moment he starts driving and the getaway begins. He says "If anything happens in that five minutes...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."
But one day a woman living next door called Irene (Carey Mulligan) and his little kid Benicio (Kaden Leos) calls to his attention. He starts a friendly relationship with her and starts getting feelings for her.
After a while Irene's husband 'Standard' (Oscar Isaac) is released from prison and he swears to cut all his ties with the mob and get out of the business. But as it turns out you can't just turn your back on the mafia (who knew?). And they demand standard does another job for them but he refuses.
After days of blackmail and beatings Driver tells him to do this one last job and that he's going to help him do it so that. "I'm not doing this for you, the mob or myself. I'm doing this for your wife and son"
He says. The plan is to heist a pawn shop belonging to one of the rival families.
While 'Standard' is inside the pawn shop a second car with tinted windows pulls up and is immediately noticed by Driver.
After a while 'Standard' comes out of the shop with a bag full of money but as he passes the shop's window he get's gunned down. It's clear to Driver that this was a set-up to kill 'Standard'.
Now he takes on the responsibility to find and stop the men who are behind this and insure Irene and Benicio's safety. But soon enough he realizes that these aren't just small time thugs and this goes way deeper then he initially thought. Now it's not just a struggle for Irene's and her kid's safety but the safety of everyone around him, including himself. And the battle for survival begins as he intends to take down everyone involved before they catch up with him. Time is running short...

The verdict: One of the greatest things about drive is that it has introduced a new way and style of action film making. It's a very slow paced movie. A great example of this is the infamous lift-scene that you can also see in the trailer. The kiss in this shot last more then 3 minutes. There's isn't any movement at all, it's a single camera shot. But with the way they use the light and the music to set the mood and amplify the changes trough these techniques makes the extremely slow parts anything but boring to watch. To acting, directing, writing, cinematography and music are one of the best i've seen in years and in my opinion these couldn't have been done better in any way.
Another thing I really liked (this is just a small detail) is that the driver is a pretty realistic hero which is something that has been missing in action movies over the last couple of years.
The only negative comment I have is that sometimes it seemed like there were small parts of the movie that were cut out for some reason which didn't make the final picture complete.
But asides from that pretty much a perfect execution from the beginning to the end.
A 9,1/10 is a well deserved score.