This movie is a salute to old fashioned misogyny. A man who can drive a car and slap a woman across the face is the hero, because there is no other man to turn to when problems need resolving. A man can physically accomplish the task, so therefore the viewer must watch him do it.

Also, the movie has major issues in the way it’s constructed. The pace is horrifically slow. I think Refn, the director, is trying to prove a point about the point of view of Ryan Gosling’s nameless stunt driver protagonist. The point appears to be how long the opening of a scene can go before anyone speaks. And every scene uses this effect. Not sure why. My guess is to prolong the feeling of boredom that sets in when you first notice it. And the 80’s-esque soundtrack that booms over long portions of the film is not a diversion, as if the audience were dancing and hoping for any song to come out of the speakers.

Gosling’s performance is tepid at best. He speaks in two word sentences about how he agrees with things, maybe asking “What happened?” if something really excites him. You might think the movie (or at least our relationship with the central protagonist) will pick up when he begins hanging out with Irene (Carey Mulligan), a lonely single mother whose husband is behind bars.

But it doesn’t, for one key reason. The plot twist of Standard (Oscar Isaac), Irene’s husband, coming home may in fact create some basic plot twists, but while Standard’s former life as a criminal is supposed to haunt his life and threaten everyone else, it also places action thrills over any attachment to this mysterious “Ryan Gosling as wheelman” archetype.

Let’s get to the action. If this had some exciting action scenes, maybe I could forgive the emotional vapidity or the lack of dialogue. But the realism in these chase scenes is unique, but they don’t belong to anything. The attempt to solve “the humanization of the action movie” dilemma shouldn’t have only been applied to the logistics of the action sequences.

The only saving grace for this movie was Albert Brooks as Bernie Rose. He gave an invigorating performance as a vicious mobster, who still had an oddly rational approach to his criminal behavior.

If only the screenwriter (I think Refn does have a good eye for visuals, even if those visuals are not grounded in any clear narrative frame of reference) could have had a similar sense of rationality.

   -- Jason Luna