Favourite Film Review

Favourite Film Review

Personally I do not have a favourite film, so in this essay I will be reviewing one of my favourite films called “Drive”.  

Drive was released in 2011, it was directed by Nicolas Winding Refn who is a danish director who won best director at the Cannes Film Festival for Drive, the screen play was done by Hossein  Amini, an Iranian-British screenwriter and film director who in the past has been nominated for such awards as the  Academy Award for Best Writing Adapted Screenplay. The cinematography was done by Newton Thomas Sigel who is an american Cinematographer, who has worked on many films like most of the X-Men movies. Finally the music was composed by Cliff Martinez who is an American film score composer, and in my opinion he completely understood what music he had to make for this film, his music really enhances the effect that this movie gives across, he really grasps the whole sinister feel of the film. Here are a few examples of songs he did for Drive:

Cliff Martinez - skull crushing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnVRJVQ00TM

Cliff Martinez - after the chase: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNQ5umRlgRY

        

Director:

Nicolas Winding Refn

Screenplay:
Hossein Amini

                                                                           

Cinematography:
Newton Winding Sigel

Music composed by:
Cliff Martinez

Drive also has some amazing actors performing in the film, especially by the main character which was acted by Ryan Gosling which is one of the most successful actors of this generation, he has been in such films as The Notebook, Crazy, Stupid, Love, The Ides of March, Gangster Squad, Only God Forgives  and many others. He has won many awards for his acting, 15 throughout his career, two of those for Drive. Drive also featured acting from very talented and successful actors such as Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Oscar Isaac, Ron Perlman and others. I think that all these talented actors are really a huge part of the reason to why this is such a great movie, they mange to act like their characters so well that it really elevates how good this movie is.

             

Driver:                                                   Irene:                                                        Shannon:

Ryan Gosling                                         Carey Mulligan                                          Bryan Cranston

Drive is described as an “American neo-noir arthouse action crime thriller film” which i thought described the film perfectly. Neo-noir means “new black” because neo means new in greek and noir means black in french, it is called this because these neo noir films are like a new and updated version of “film-noire” from the 1940’s. So I thought that neo-noire was a good category to put this film in just because it does have so many dark aspects to it and utilises so many  elements of film noir like the dark colors and the mysterious and sinister music. 

Drive was also categorised as an arthouse film, art house means “films that are artistic or experimental rather than merely entertaining”. Personally these are the types of movies which i love to watch and would love to make, Drive fits that category very well in my opinion for several reasons, the choice of music, the fact that we never know the main characters name, and that the main character does not talk a lot through out the whole film, a lot of the music is very different to what you would here in a movie where the goal is to make a lot of money or to just please the audience, I would categorise the music used as artistic and experimental and personally i really like it and it fits perfectly with the film since it is artistic and experimental as well. 

As shown above (“American neo-noir arthouse action crime thriller film”) Drive was also categorised as an “action crime”  film, which it is. Drive has some intense car get-aways and crime being committed, in the first scene you already witness a robbery and a car chase with the police involved. I find it very impressive that Drive is so modern and artistic/experimental yet it also manages to include such things as car chases with police and villains which is something you would expect out of a big hollywood blockbuster film like Need For Speed, yet it remains so different in a good way. 

Lastly drive was categorised as a thriller, on wikipedia a thriller is defined as “a novel, play or film with an exciting plot, typically involving crime or espionage”. Drive definitely has an exciting plot, it has a lot of action and at times the film goes very fast but at other times very slow, the pace of the movie varies through out the film but the viewer is constantly excited to see what happens next, The acceleration of drive is great. Drive also is very centred around crime, the main characters side job is to actually drive criminals away from crime scenes and through out the film the main character often breaks the law too, doing things like violently crushing someone’s head with his foot until his brains are spewed across the floor, or simply evading the police in a car chase. So i definitely consider Drive as a thriller for the reason that it full fills all the criteria of a thriller film, I was thrilled watching the film.

With all these things combined, awe-inspiring cinematography, impressive directing, splendid acting and great music, this movie has become one of my favourite movies, and in some ways an inspiration because it is the type of movie I like and would like to make.

— Lucas Smith.