Drive (2011)

Steve McQueen would faint. “Drive” is a soaked-in-blood B-Grade car chase flick living the A-Grade life, with a silent, stewing Ryan Gosling (“My Blue Valentine”) as Driver, a nameless Hollywood stunt man by day and a freelance wheelman by night. When he drives, cutting j-turns or racing past other cars, he does so with the exact precision of a brain surgeon. A toothpick sticks straight out of our hero’s closed mouth, as if it’s a holy cross, and biting on it will keep Driver’s tires spinning. He doesn’t sweat the cop car chases or the helicopter search lights, barely blinking as he turns and swerves and hides, the wide-eyed thieves in the backseat sweating and bopping around like loose grocery items.

Of course “Driver” is a Hollywood film itself, so there must be a lonely, pretty woman (Carey Mulligan) down the hallway, an oddball mentor (Bryan Cranston), and sadistic mobsters out to make the hero’s life hell. The heavies are played by Ron Perlman – turning his Hellboy hero upside down to pure-fire menace – and Albert Brooks – erasing decades of nice guy nerds by taking kitchen cutlery to a man’s head and throat. It’s a bristling, seething performance, and it deserves an Oscar nomination.

But don’t think Gosling is be lefty empty-handed against such villainy. As with Clint Eastwood as The Man with No Name and Kurt Russell as Snake Plisskin, Gosling’s acting is all in his glare, the slight movement of an eye against an opponent. For the first part of the film, one assumes he is just a driver for criminals, not prone to violence or crime. Wrong. He threatens a betraying woman, beats a man with a hammer and makes him swallow a bullet, and then ups the ante by beating a man to death. Gosling’s Driver does this seemingly without raising his pulse, a mere sweat mark, as if he’s just jogged a mile or two. A nice workout. Great performance.

There’s not a wasted moment in this economic film, shot similar to a late ’70s midnight feature that shows up on cable every now and then, and scored with a pulsating 1980s rock beat that sizzles. Hossein Amini’s screenplay is sparse, sharp. Gosling maybe has under 100 words. One great exchange: Brooks’ mobster wants to shake hands with Driver at the start of the film. Driver demurs. “My hands are dirty.” Grease and grime. “So are mine,” the man shoots back. Blood and sin.

Director Nicolas Winding Refn stages chases low to the ground, as if we’re following along on a jet-fueled skateboard. The fights and murders are doused with buckets of blood: A skull explodes wide open from a shotgun blast and when Driver stomps a man to death, we hear every crack of skull then the mushy plop of brain tissue. Wisely Refn pulls back the on-screen carnage toward the end for shadows and long shots. His prison drama “Bronson” was a shocking powerhouse film, but I thought his Viking flick “Valhalla Rising” was too artsy. Here Refn is in full gear, grinding the throttle until the engine gives, not sweating.

“Drive” doesn’t break new ground. The plot is, to put it mildly, familiar. So was “13 Assassins,” another summer winner for me. I’m not sure Mulligan pulls off her role: A mother and waitress barely scraping by money wise with a husband in prison. Most women in that position would be tired and frazzled. Her Irene seems more grad school track. But that’s Mulligan’s mug, I think. This past summer left us little in the way of pure adrenaline rushes, and “Driver” than fits the bill. I can’t wait to take it for another spin. A-