Drive - 3 1/2 stars

Ryan Gosling plays Driver, and he, well, drives cars. During the day, he is a stunt driver for movies. At night, he works as a getaway driver for criminals. The opening scene shows him displaying his skills as he evades police throught the streets of Los Angeles. It is a very exciting sequence.

Then the movie slows down for a bit. Driver lives in an apartment building, and a woman (Carey Mulligan) and her young son live nearby. He gets to know them and a friendship develops. Eventually he feels protective over her. Another job he has is as a car mechanic. He works at a shop run by Bryan Cranston, who gets him work as a getaway driver.

Driver doesn't talk much. There are scenes where he doesn't say a word, and when he eventually does, it seems like a struggle for him to speak. For the first half of the movie, he seems completely harmless. Then when he is required to defend himself, we find out he is a lethal killing machine. When the violence happens, it is shocking. I can't remember a movie that made the violence so real. Something about the way it is filmed, the sound effects, and the acting that makes it seem so real.

There are a couple of gangsters in the movie played by Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman. It is really nice to see Brooks playing against type, and he creates a great villain. He is so good in this movie that I can't wait to see it again, just for his performance.

This is one of those movies that rewards patience. It isn't a fast paced action movie like The Fast and the Furious movies. There is some good action, but the movie is more of a drama. Action without well developed characters can easily get boring. Even though this movie moves slowly, it is never boring, and the small amount of action is really exciting.