The opening titles (in pink "handwriting" font) and blaring synth soundtrack had me thinking that the whole thing had to be some kind of joke, from the very beginning. The opening sequence (in which the unnamed protagonist has to outwit a police dragnet including cars and a helicopter) was promising; I'd never seen anything like that before. But then the movie gets down to business, and the sheer ineptitude of the storytelling and production, combined with the overblown, pretentious "nihilism" of the plot and the character descriptions, created a thoroughly unpleasant atmosphere, oppressive and dull at the same time (with characters alternately behaving stoically and shouting at the top of their lungs) that finally beat me into submission and I gave up.
Not to mention the fact that the movie is needlessly, garishly violent, with slow-motion shotgun-to-the-head closeups, not in the good Eli-Roth way but in the childish, creepy "I'm so cool" fashion that makes you wonder what the filmmakers have going on in their subconscious. And Christina Hendricks (removed from her Mad Men persona and clothing for the first time in my experience) is totally miscast, her presence wasted.
Apparently a lot of people really dig this movie (which is why I rented it). But what a load of crap! I'm bringing it up here just to see if any other H'thonners shared my experience of this odious film.
10 comments:
My goodness!
I saw this in the theater and really liked it. The only thing that disappointed me was the lack of a climactic driving action scene, which I was mostly expecting because I'd mis-heard someone describing the movie.
I liked it because it had a pared-down feel to it; no fat. It seemed like Ryan Gosling's character had Asperger's, with his level of aloofness and expertise, and for me that made his sudden outbursts of violence interesting in a mysterious way (because you never learn anything about his background, or even his name). And I really liked Albert Brooks as a bad guy.
For anyone who's lived in LA, it's a super LA movie, and I had no problems with the supporting cast (like Bryan "I'm suddenly in every movie" Cranston).
On the con side, there's the sarcastic poster seen here that sums up the main problem nicely. Here's the quote for those with no time to click links:
Featuring: A Whole Lotta Driving. Yep, Like, Wall to Wall
(That is, the driving scenes are fun, but there are only two, and the second one comes a little past the movie's midpoint.)
I also spoke to someone who hated Gosling in this, who just saw affectation in every scene. And yeah, there's no reason for Christina Hendricks to be in this.
But I had a good time. 50P and I saw it right before October last year.
I had this sinking feeling that somebody whose opinions I value would disagree. And I was obviously right.
I don't know what to say. I honestly lost interest and turned it off about 2/3 of the way through. I had to force myself to watch the (awful, predictable) ending and I couldn't even do that.
If you want to see a good movie along the same lines -- but one that's actually providing the thematic force being badly mimicked here -- check out After Dark My Sweet (1991) which is actually based on a Jim Thompson novel and is to this crap as a sirloin teak is to a slim jim.
Is there anything to be gained by getting into the pros and cons of this movie? Yes? No? Well, you liked Speed Racer; what can I say. :)
Also, Albert Brooks was a terrible bad guy! Completely unbelievable. You can see him straining to suppress his wonderful, whiny personality; the result is like a concrete mask. Compare his equally-dramatic but excellent amoral-weakling performance in Soderbergh's Out of Sight.
Which reminds me: yet another good movie in this same vein, which (again) is like cognac compared to the Kool-Aid being served here, is Soderbergh's The Limey. Now that's a nihilistic L.A. revenge flick worth your time!
You liked 2012.
Have you seen Speed Racer? I forget.
Albert Brooks was fun because of his innescapable wonderful, whiny personality. It's like Albert Brooks, the evil version. He's being nice to a guy he's in the process of stabbing at one point.
I saw the first twenty minutes of Speed Racer and stopped.
I didn't "like" 2012. I thought it was passable trash (like I said in my initial comments): it's unambitious and stupid, but bearable and watchable. There's never any question of it being, you know, an actually good movie (as was, for example, the sci-fi masterpiece I Am Legend or even something like Fincher's Dragon Tattoo or Moneyball or Tinker Tailor, just to name some recent high-toned successes).
That's the point: I've been so happy about how we've entered an era of actually good movies (like all the ones I've mentioned). Something like 2012 isn't even playing in those leagues; it's not something you take seriously (It's a Roland Emmerich movie, for God's sake -- Michael Bay honestly has more of a chance of impressing me than does Emmerich).
But Drive gives me this sinking feeling, like I'm back in the awful late-80s-early-90s period when the "good" movies were mostly bad; when it seemed like the filmmakers and the audiences together had lost track of what a good movie was to begin with, and we were seeing stuff like Donnie Brasco and The Usual Suspects and Titanic and The English Patient and Dances With Wolves and The Piano and Out of Africa and people thought they were good, because there wasn't any frame of reference -- there was no There Will Be Blood or No Country For Old Men or The Wrestler or The Departed or Revolutionary Road to compare them to.
Albert Brooks' performance (and all the "crime" stuff in Drive) reminded me of another recent movie that I hated but that got a lot of respect: A History of Violence. The same kind of weird, fake "crime" material with shouting actors and over-the-top butchery instead of genuine dread. Any random episode of The Wire demonstrates how bad this stuff is in comparison (and does it quietly and with infinitely more horror and dread).
I'm with Jordan on this one!
A guy at work told me I "must see!" this movie and I fucking hated it (mainly because of Ryan Gosling's lobotomized performance. That was the first time I've seen the bastard and I hope to never see him again.) I didn't want to hurt the guy's feelings so I was left with the unfortunate task of lying. I struggled to focus solely on the positives. The conversation went something like this:
Edward: Did you watch Drive yet?
Me: Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you I watched it last week. I *clenched teeth* liked it! It was really violent!
Edward: I know, right?
How have we gotten through this many responses without anyone mentioning the silliest part of this movie: all those totally needless slow-mo shots. I'm convinced the director finished his cut and realized, "Crap, I've got a 53 minutue feature film!" So he just started slapping slow motion all over the place.
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