Drive (2011)

2/5

Drive is an over-stylized mess of a movie without a clear focus, although it's directed as if it had one. The threadbare plot is too simple and pointless to warrant a sentence reiterating it; suffice it to say it's about crime, revenge, and a little bit of driving (but not as much as the title would lead you to believe). Ryan Gosling plays the strong, silent superhero who "doesn't carry a gun" but has no qualms with stomping skulls in. He plays it well--his acting is probably the best part of the movie--but he does it under misguided direction from Refn. He alternates between stoic and angry and child-like on a dime, but doesn't do it in a convincingly personal or meaningfully complex way, just on the whims of the plot so we can see some sensational yelling or killing at random intervals.

Refn directs the movie like a comic book, with striking visuals and superb juxtaposition telling the story in place of dialogue. The 80's synth music and pink typography give it a retro feel, but it feels a little out of place. I commend the style, but I guess I came into the theater expecting the maturity of a novel. I typically don't like violence without a purpose: I want a movie to give me something back to make up for assaulting my senses. But Refn's goal with Drive seems simply to shock and appall you without any substance beneath the special effects. All in all, I cannot recommend this movie.

Also, it stole its tagline from No Country for Old Men.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780504/

Life As We Know It (2010)

4/5

Life As We Know It is a tender, heartfelt romantic comedy that hits all the right notes. When Peter (MacArthur) and Alison (Hendricks) Novack die in a car accident, their two best friends are given guardianship of their 1-year-old daughter, Sophie. Holly (Heigl) is a driven, organized entrepreneur and chef; she is taking out construction loans to expand her pastry shop into a full-out restaurant. Messer (Duhamel) is a suave womanizer living the life every guy dreams of: he watches basketball games for a living and gets free dinner and drinks from women who want to sleep with him. Out of their love for their friends and the child, they accept. But fitting into their roles as Sophie's parents is much more difficult than they anticipated.

The acting in this movie is superb. Duhamel was the best part about When In Rome, and he's the best part about Life As We Know It too. He has charm and wit, but lacks the sleaze you'd associate with someone who supposedly sleeps around with every woman he can find. One of the negatives about this movie is that I just didn't find him convincing as Messer. He somehow changed the character into someone likable and sympathetic. I doubt that the person on screen was the same person scripted. Luckily, Heigl is his match, revealing an understated but explosive personality. She is not what you'd expect, given her professional, work-obsessed appearance and relative lack of a personal life. Yes, she wants a family, but she wants it on her terms, not thrust on her like this.

I spent a paragraph describing the characters because characters are what make a movie like this successful, endearing, and memorable. They are imbued with humor and played with honest emotion. Their intricacies and complexities are precisely brought to life on screen. The rest of the technical details like dull cinematography and subpar editing just fall by the wayside when you see this movie. No, I didn't laugh as much in this movie as I did in Going the Distance, but this one did pull at the heartstrings a little bit more. This may not be the movie for everyone, but you'd have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by some of the scenes in this movie.

Note: There is a crucial scene near the climax/finale dealing with a phone call. The phone that rings is an original Sprint Palm Pre with all original webOS UI, and I don't think I have ever been so excited to see anything or anyone in a movie in my life. I literally jumped out of my seat and started hitting my girlfriend's arm to get her attention as I giggled like a little schoolgirl. I have no idea why. I also noticed that my favorite Parker Jotter pen and Oxo mug made cameos, which was pretty cool as well.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1055292/