Hello, movie fans! This is Hayden from haydensmovies.com bringing you the latest and greatest in movie news and reviews.

This week brought us a few new releases, none of which were highly anticipated. I chose to see Ryan Gosling’s new film, “Drive.”

Drive is the story of Gosling’s character, known only as “the driver,” who is a movie stunt man but doubles as a wheel man. He gets caught in the middle of a job gone wrong and must get his hands dirty in order to save himself and the people he loves the most.

The official trailer for “Drive” is actually quite beautiful and had me dying to go see it. The movie itself was something different.

If you watch the trailer, you’ll hear just about every word Gosling utters throughout the entire movie. His character is quiet, yet extremely powerful and intimidating at times.

I was hoping that it would be a darker version of “The Fast and The Furious” with a strong focus on the driver’s abilities. The only thing that was dark about the film was the driver, and I’m not saying that as a good thing. His past was left up for grabs and nothing was known about him.

I was hoping for something in terms of background information. Perhaps he was a troubled youth, maybe he’s always been a criminal, or maybe he was an ex-Army Ranger? I love quality character development so this was a huge hit to the likability of the movie.

“Drive” is dark and extremely violent at times. “A History of Violence” comes to mind when I think of a movie that is on the same level of gore and violence with such little action.

Gosling and co-star Carey Mulligan did a wonderful job. The problem wasn’t in the actors but rather the writing and development. I wish I walked away with more of a smile on my face, but I can still respect the story and bright spots that it had.

At the end of the day, “Drive” is all over the place. It’s exciting and dull. It’s warm and bloody. If it’s not your type of movie, you should skip it.

My score: 7.2

_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Hayden Mace/For the Review
Hayden Mace can be reached at [email protected].