Drive

Take the style of Michael Mann when he's actually being good, the moral darkness of Schrader (think 'Taxi Driver', 'American Gigolo'), and a good dollop of 'Shane' and you have 'Drive', a.k.a. the movie that's too cool for school. Slap on a cracking 80s style score by the likes of The Chromatics, and things start bubbling. Then add a confident Ryan Gosling, amiable Bryan Cranston and the always sleazy Ron Perlman, oh, and who's that? - well, who would have thought it, Albert Brooks as a convincing psycho (actually there's a lot of them about in this movie, including the 'hero') - and things just get better and better. If only Carey Mulligan would stop smiling in three different ways and actually act (I'd pay a lot to see her actually play angry for instance), we might have the perfect movie. Actually no, we wouldn't, because despite all that coolness - and this film fairly drips with it - there is actually nothing here that you haven't seen before. In fact a lunatic French guy behind me in the cinema claimed to prefer 'Man on Fire' (avec Denzel Washington) when it finished (I think I could smell his socks through the movie, the stinking French bastard's, not Denzel Washington's). Yes, it was similar to 'Man on Fire', among many other movies, though less so than most, but just because it's been done before doesn't mean it's been done better and this does it pretty damn well. 'Man on Fire', my ass! Anyhow though I too have seen this all before I did really like watching it all again. Though I kind of missed a little kid at the end crying 'Shane, Shane....' Probably wouldn't have been very cool though....