Anticipating the Pursuit of Ryan Gosling in Drive

Well apparently a lot of you were like me and saw Contagion over the weekend as it took the top spot at the box office.  That’s all well and good, but now were on to smaller, but hopefully better movies, moving deeper into the fall dramas that are film festival darlings and awards circuit contenders.

This week, I’m excited to go and see Drive. The movie has up and coming stars of the film industry all over it, and has had great early buzz since it played at Cannes months ago.  It tells the story of a movie stunt driver whose night job is being a getaway driver for anyone who hires him, but gets mixed up in a theft gone wrong.  Directed by the up and coming Nicolas Winding Refn, who made a name for himself and Tom Hardy with Bronson, the trailer teases long shots and slo-mo action and car crashes. Two things that definitely get me excited.

More impressive than the quality of the director is that of the cast. It features highly regarded actors, who all are making it big right now. The film stars Ryan Gosling (Crazy, Stupid, Love and The Notebook) as the hero with a controversial side-job and Carey Mulligan (Wall Street 2 and Never Let Me Go) as his apparent love interest. Backing them up are Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), Christina Hendricks (Mad Men), Oscar Isaac (Robin Hood), and in a rare role as a bad guy, Albert Brooks. This is an all-star cast who have the chops for drama, Hendricks and Cranston coming from the two best dramas on television, and will ony intesify the noir feel that comes through in the trailer.

The trailer is fast paced, featuring dramatic sounding dialogue, violence, and car chases. All of it is steadily shot and with crystal clear picture quality as opposed to the grainier look you’ll find in a Michael Mann film like Collateral or the quick action cuts of the Bourne movies or The Dark Knight.  Heck, I’m even stoked to see the movie just because the posters have the title spelled out in a neon pink cursive graffiti font.

This movie looks better than Contagion to me, and should hopefully take over the number one spot if everyone else feels the same way.

Matt Brickell is a contributing writer who loves driving and hates traffic.