So I downloaded and watched Drive last night, or as I like to call it, "Waiting for something to happen and pensive facial expressions: The Movie". Really not feeling the love here. Painfully one-dimensional characters, completely lackluster plot and pretty much the absolute minimal amount of dialogue and action they could get away with, only to replaced by a torrent of scenes in which the characters do nothing but stare at each other and/or look pensive. From the opening sequence, I went in expecting a more serious and down-to-earth, smarter version of The Transporter and ended up with Garden State, complete with an obviously hipster-fodder soundtrack but only half the charm (and I kinda really hate Garden State). I mean, I get that this wasn't really meant to be any sort of action movie or anything like that. But how can you have a character-driven film with no progression or real emotion of any kind? I feel like I can't fault Gosling here, for anything other than accepting this, at least. I expect he's playing the role exactly as written. What boggles me is what exactly the fuck the writer or director is trying to accomplish with his character. You get all these infinitesimally subtle hints as to the emotions Gosling may or may not be experiencing underneath his stoic, dead-eyed stare, but nothing that ever gives you any real connection with the character or tells the audience what he's all about. And maybe this is Gosling's fault, but instead of being this steadfast bad-ass with a heart of gold I expect he's supposed to be, he just comes off as kinda slow. Of the Forest Gump variety. I mean, for fuck's sake, throw the guy a bone. He probably has no more than 150 words in the entire duration of the film. Instead, it's just blank stares and long shots of him driving through the city at night. Laborious is the only way I can describe it. Every shot lingers, every awkward pause drawn-out, every syllable forced. And that's every character and scene in the movie. I doesn't surprise me at all that this is based on a book. The book is probably great - filled with plenty of lurid descriptors of what these characters are feeling. Unfortunately the film fails completely in trying to convey anything of substance.
Shit, I hated this movie. Like, more than anything I've seen in years. Seriously, the last time I can recall being this overwhelmed with dissatisfaction after watching a film was probably when I saw Garden State. Holy shit.
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