When Louis Bloom, a con man desperate for work, muscles into the world of L.A. crime journalism, he blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story.
A motorcycle stunt rider turns to robbing banks as a way to provide for his lover and their newborn child, a decision that puts him on a collision course with an ambitious rookie cop navigating a department ruled by a corrupt detective.
A wealthy New York investment banking executive, Patrick Bateman, hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he delves deeper into his violent, hedonistic fantasies.
In the late 1960s/early 1970s, a San Francisco cartoonist becomes an amateur detective obsessed with tracking down the Zodiac Killer, an unidentified individual who terrorizes Northern California with a killing spree.
Director:
David Fincher
Stars:
Jake Gyllenhaal,
Robert Downey Jr.,
Mark Ruffalo
Julian, a drug-smuggler thriving in Bangkok's criminal underworld, sees his life get even more complicated when his mother compels him to find and kill whoever is responsible for his brother's recent death.
Director:
Nicolas Winding Refn
Stars:
Ryan Gosling,
Kristin Scott Thomas,
Vithaya Pansringarm
Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg creates the social networking site that would become known as Facebook, but is later sued by two brothers who claimed he stole their idea, and the co-founder who was later squeezed out of the business.
Director:
David Fincher
Stars:
Jesse Eisenberg,
Andrew Garfield,
Justin Timberlake
An extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth suddenly finds a kindred spirit in a government agent who is exposed to their biotechnology.
An aspiring model, Jesse, is new to Los Angeles. However, her beauty and youth, which generate intense fascination and jealousy within the fashion industry, may prove themselves sinister.
Director:
Nicolas Winding Refn
Stars:
Elle Fanning,
Christina Hendricks,
Keanu Reeves
A young programmer is selected to participate in a ground-breaking experiment in synthetic intelligence by evaluating the human qualities of a breath-taking humanoid A.I.
Director:
Alex Garland
Stars:
Alicia Vikander,
Domhnall Gleeson,
Oscar Isaac
A mysterious man who has multiple jobs as a garage mechanic, a Hollywood stuntman and a getaway driver seems to be trying to escape his shady past as he falls for his neighbor - whose husband is in prison and who's looking after her child alone. Meanwhile, his garage mechanic boss is trying to set up a race team using gangland money, which implicates our driver as he is to be used as the race team's main driver. Our hero gets more than he bargained for when he meets the man who is married to the woman he loves.Written by
shin
Nicolas Winding Refn moved into a Los Angeles home during filming and insisted that the cast members and screenwriter move in with him. They would work on the script and film all day, then watch films, edit or drive at night. Refn requested that the editing suite be placed in his home as well. With a shooting script of 81 pages, Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling continued to trim down dialog during filming. See more »
Goofs
When Driver is obtaining his Chevrolet Impala for the heist, he is told that the stock engine has been swapped for one with over 300 horsepower. In reality, that generation Impala (ninth generation) already had an available engine with over 300 horsepower. The Impala SS came with the 5.3 L LS4 V8 engine producing 303 horsepower. The SuperSport (SS) model was likely avoided because the trim package and other extras were not as common than other ninth generation Impalas and might make the car more distinguishable to police. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Driver:
[on phone]
There's a hundred-thousand streets in this city. You don't need to know the route. You give me a time and a place, I give you a five minute window. Anything happens in that five minutes and I'm yours. No matter what. Anything happens a minute either side of that and you're on your own. Do you understand?
[pause]
Driver:
Good. And you won't be able to reach me on this phone again.
See more »
I've seen the last few Nicholas Winding Refn films, and while I liked both Bronson and Valhalla Rising a lot, they were both "difficult" films, in that both structure, pacing and tone were bound to alienate some people, and of course they were both marketed as somewhat mainstream films while being anything but.
Part of the irony of Refn's situation is that he makes films about "Primal" man- and these protagonists invariably commit acts of great violence on those around them. This violence puts his films into the genre categories that Hollywood recognises and promotes to the public, resulting in trailers for Refn movies that grossly misrepresent the sophistication of the actual film. In that way, Valhalla's intense, slow-burning and almost dialogue-free mythic exploration of our savage past can be repackaged as a "Vlad the Viking goes to the New World" action movie.
Yet both Valhalla and Bronson were highly "directed" films, revealing a very strong hand in control of the material. And so, I was extremely curious to see what Refn would do with the material, and whether he would be able to rein in his sometimes obtrusive style in order to allow the story more room to breathe... I shouldn't have worried. I think the director has managed to balance a genuine artistry with the demands of the genre in a way that is rarely, if ever, achieved. I absolutely loved it. Just stay the hell away from the trailer, as it reveals far too much, and again, misrepresents the film's true "feel".
Driver has a tone of wry amusement at everything around it, much like Gosling's half-smirk, pivoted on the toothpick perpetually in the corner of his mouth. Schmucky gangsters and mob clichés provide some laughs, but the heart of the film is Gosling's portrayal of the unnamed? main character and his sweet, underplayed romance with Mulligan and her young son.
While an ethereal synthesizer-pop soundtrack provides an at-times tender,at-times mythic undercurrent, the car chases and action scenes, when they come, are tense, brutal and brief- far more Eastern Promises than The Transporter. Mulligan plays her character all trembly, wet-eyed, sweet and innocent and is swept away by Gosling's quiet strength and self-assured charm, while Gosling speaks little and remains a mystery to the end, though we never doubt his fundamentally good nature.
The seasoned supporting cast are all very fun, except maybe for Kendricks who is relegated to a fairly irrelevant part. Of course, this is really Gosling's film, and he inhabits the character completely, turning what could be a straightforward Hollyood tough-guy role into a complex and contradictory character, self-confident and physical, yet clearly lonely and possessed with a certain peculiarity and stillness, almost reminiscent of De Niro's Travis Bickle.
Visually the film is lush and gorgeous. Like Michael Mann, Refn and his cinematographer are able to instill LA with a sense of life and character that most directors just fail to do. Unlike Mann however, Refn opts for warm orange tones over Mann's hard blues, and in one particularly beautiful sequence the familiar LA cliché of driving down the dry LA river is taken to an unexpectedly joyful conclusion.
Despite its absolute craftsmanship, Driver is probably not for everybody, which makes me sad. People who prefer bald-headed muscle men slugging and wise-cracking their way into their wallets should of course stay away, as this bears very little resemblance to the standard Hollywood fare associated with the genre, and they might well be disappointed.
But for me, Driver was sweet, surreal, mythic, tense, fun, hilarious, revolting, and surprising. See it because it will make you a better person.
And so, 10 out of 10, because it deserves it.
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A truly beautiful and hypnotic film.
I've seen the last few Nicholas Winding Refn films, and while I liked both Bronson and Valhalla Rising a lot, they were both "difficult" films, in that both structure, pacing and tone were bound to alienate some people, and of course they were both marketed as somewhat mainstream films while being anything but.
Part of the irony of Refn's situation is that he makes films about "Primal" man- and these protagonists invariably commit acts of great violence on those around them. This violence puts his films into the genre categories that Hollywood recognises and promotes to the public, resulting in trailers for Refn movies that grossly misrepresent the sophistication of the actual film. In that way, Valhalla's intense, slow-burning and almost dialogue-free mythic exploration of our savage past can be repackaged as a "Vlad the Viking goes to the New World" action movie.
Yet both Valhalla and Bronson were highly "directed" films, revealing a very strong hand in control of the material. And so, I was extremely curious to see what Refn would do with the material, and whether he would be able to rein in his sometimes obtrusive style in order to allow the story more room to breathe... I shouldn't have worried. I think the director has managed to balance a genuine artistry with the demands of the genre in a way that is rarely, if ever, achieved. I absolutely loved it. Just stay the hell away from the trailer, as it reveals far too much, and again, misrepresents the film's true "feel".
Driver has a tone of wry amusement at everything around it, much like Gosling's half-smirk, pivoted on the toothpick perpetually in the corner of his mouth. Schmucky gangsters and mob clichés provide some laughs, but the heart of the film is Gosling's portrayal of the unnamed? main character and his sweet, underplayed romance with Mulligan and her young son.
While an ethereal synthesizer-pop soundtrack provides an at-times tender,at-times mythic undercurrent, the car chases and action scenes, when they come, are tense, brutal and brief- far more Eastern Promises than The Transporter. Mulligan plays her character all trembly, wet-eyed, sweet and innocent and is swept away by Gosling's quiet strength and self-assured charm, while Gosling speaks little and remains a mystery to the end, though we never doubt his fundamentally good nature.
The seasoned supporting cast are all very fun, except maybe for Kendricks who is relegated to a fairly irrelevant part. Of course, this is really Gosling's film, and he inhabits the character completely, turning what could be a straightforward Hollyood tough-guy role into a complex and contradictory character, self-confident and physical, yet clearly lonely and possessed with a certain peculiarity and stillness, almost reminiscent of De Niro's Travis Bickle.
Visually the film is lush and gorgeous. Like Michael Mann, Refn and his cinematographer are able to instill LA with a sense of life and character that most directors just fail to do. Unlike Mann however, Refn opts for warm orange tones over Mann's hard blues, and in one particularly beautiful sequence the familiar LA cliché of driving down the dry LA river is taken to an unexpectedly joyful conclusion.
Despite its absolute craftsmanship, Driver is probably not for everybody, which makes me sad. People who prefer bald-headed muscle men slugging and wise-cracking their way into their wallets should of course stay away, as this bears very little resemblance to the standard Hollywood fare associated with the genre, and they might well be disappointed.
But for me, Driver was sweet, surreal, mythic, tense, fun, hilarious, revolting, and surprising. See it because it will make you a better person.
And so, 10 out of 10, because it deserves it.