Drive

    

    Drive is a movie I've been meaning to watch but never got around to, until it came up on my Netflix account as a recommended title. Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan, I'm going to categorize this movie as "Good movie, happy I saw it, never really want to see it again." Maybe I'm not as into art house movies as I think I am, but there were a few things in here that just brought the movie down a few notches for me.
     First, and most importantly, the long awkward silences. If you've seen this movie, you know what I'm talking about. Ryan Gosling's character, the Driver, and Carey Mulligan's character spend a lot of time together where not a freaking word is said! At first the scenes come off as sweet, as they stare longingly into each other's eyes. Then three minutes pass by and they're still doing it! Why? Why?! Let me just say that if I tried this on a girl, just staring at her for extended periods of time, cops would be called, and then I'd be spending the night with some guy in a striped jump suit. The scenes are fine at first, but they just go too long. Creepy too long. The movie clocks in at 100 minutes. If you trimmed most of these long silences, you could easily get this movie down to 80 or so minutes.
     The other problem I had was with the car chases. Now hear me out, because the car chases were awesome! There was no music at all over the scene, and this for some reason adds a heightened sense of urgency. (For more scenes intense scenes with no soundtrack, see Children of Men.) The problem I had was with the first car chase, cops were everywhere. Even an LAPD helicopter jumped in on the action. The second chase scene covered many miles in broad daylight, and not a cop to be found. In Los Angeles and the surrounding valley. Daylight. No cops. Los Angeles. Really?
     Those are really my biggest gripes. Again, I liked the movie a lot. It was briefly super violent, and the violence comes out of nowhere, so buckle up for that. I can recommend this movie, I'm glad I saw it, but there's really no need for repeat viewings. I got it covered on this one.