Movie review: Drive ***

Stars: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Albert Brooks, Ron Perlman
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Rated: R
Showing: Neptune Cinema week of Friday, September 16 – daily at 7:30pm except Sunday at 5:30pm. For more information call 292-7296.
Tickets: Buy tickets online
Runtime: 100 minutes
Action/drama

If you want to make your getaway, you need to play it cool. No squealing tires. No panic at the first sign of the police.

You need to stick to the speed limit. You need to know when to pull over behind a truck, turn off your lights and wait for the po-po to pass you by.

Or you need to hire "the kid", a guy who knows those things. Ryan Gosling oozes Steve McQueen cool in Drive, a lean, pulsating thriller about a mechanic and part-time movie stunt-driver who moonlights as a "wheelman", the fellow who can pick you up, take you to your robbery and get you out of there before the cops catch you.

He is the guy who knows that "there are a hundred thousand streets in this city," the guy who knows how long a police helicopter will be able to commit to a search for a getaway car, what streets will be darkest, what public event will be letting out just in time for him to ditch the car and just stroll away with the crowds.

Gosling (Crazy, Stupid, Love) suggests a sort of blue-collar cunning here. He's probably seen a few heist movies, a few car pictures. He builds cars, works on them and drives with precise abandon, when the movie stunt he's asked to do calls for it. He could be a stock car driver, if his boss and partner in crime (Bryan Cranston) has his way.

But in the meantime, he's got this other gig - and a very precise set of rules about method of payment and the window of time he'll be at the scene of the crime - "five minutes," he says.

Albert Brooks and the great Ron Perlman perfectly embody lowlifes just slightly higher on the underworld food chain in Nicolas Winding Refn's film of the James Sallis novel. Each is dangerous. One, at least, seems reasonable. And that's the one you worry about.

Refn has created the quietest car picture ever. The dialogue is spare, with deadpan stares and meaningful glances developing the relationships. The silences, muted chases scored with understated music, build tension. We know there's a "Bullitt" moment coming, a violent and noisy reckoning.

There are no cops hot on the trail of the criminals, just double-dealing and double-crossing and blood and secret sides to every personality. This mild-mannered driver is capable of something. We feel it long before we see it.