Drive vs Red Rock West

If you’ve ever read a Nicolas Cage interview, you know that he speaks a lot about the intent and philosophy behind his script choices. Cage makes serious artistic decisions, and views a role like his in Con Air as a statement on the mythology of the hero in American culture. Yes, he’s crazy. You can imagine the thought-process surrounding his would-be take on Superman, as well as his sporadic recent successes, like the everyman characters in Adaptation and The Weatherman. About half way through Drive, which feels both like some lost legendary action movie, and an existential character study maybe translated from another language, it hit me: this is what Nicolas Cage means to do. When he takes a part in Drive Angry, or Gone In Sixty Seconds, or Ghost Rider, Cage is making, in his eyes, a comment on man’s isolation within technology, or how we use machines to channel our emotions, or about how a man in a car is some kind of crazy Nicolas Cagean mancar, and how rad that movie would be, and here’s a wig and $20 million.

Drive is a rarity: a meditative action movie. Much of it is dialogue-free, the story communicated instead through eye contact, body language, ulra-violence, and a strange Euro-synthpop soundtrack.

Ryan Gosling is the Driver. He doesn’t have a name besides Driver, although some characters refer to him as the Kid. Kid isn’t as cool a movie title as Drive, so Driver it is. Driver…drives. He drives stunt cars on movie sets, getaway cars for criminals, and perhaps sometime soon, a stockcar in races. Early in the film, he’s the getaway for a crime he’s otherwise not involved in. He doesn’t peel out and speed away, instead taking his time, using the smartest route, avoiding both cop cars and a helicopter by knowing the area; hiding behind trucks, buildings and bridges; and, when the time is right, speeding away. Driver barely speaks. He gives his rules to the thieves he drives for when the deal is made, but says nothing while driving. He wears the same thing, a satin jacket with a scorpion on the back, in nearly every scene, and typically has a toothpick in his mouth. He’s a nice, agreeable guy; his boss at all three driving jobs (Bryan Cranston) is crazy about him, and his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan) has an obvious crush. But Driver is a dangerous guy. I’m not sure how much trouble he’s seen prior to the beginning of the movie, but once he gets to know Irene and her son, and is smitten with both, Driver designates himself their protector.

You see, Irene has a husband, just released from prison. And he’s made friends with the wrong kinds of people, who want him to do just one more job. To get the bad guys away from Irene’s family, even though it doesn’t have any promise of a future of him in it, Driver agrees to help out. Something amazing happens: Christina Hendricks is introduced into the film, as Blanche, standing under a sign that says “God Bless America” while wearing painted-on jeans. The sign and I agree. Something terrible happens: every other thing. The job, a simple hold-up, turns bloody, and then bloodier, with Driver and Blanche speeding down the road backwards. When Drive steps away from its existential mancar hero analysis (which it does quite well, I should say), it’s one hell of an exciting movie. It’s also shockingly violent, in small bursts of bullets, blood, knives and boots. You’ll cringe, because you’re human, but you won’t look away, because Drive rocks. It reminds me of The American, with its talented anti-hero specialist, and of slick 1980s’ fair like To Live And Die In L.A. And with hindsight, Drive might make a fun companion to Eddie Murphy’s fish-out-of-water action movies like 48 Hours and Beverly Hills Cop.

Drive was directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, who also made Bronson. Refn, as you can tell by the above comparisons, has a sly sense of humor, and a grasp on retro pleasures that’s only bested by Quentin Tarantino. He’s not making a parody or a throwback. The violence is extreme enough that it will likely elicit laughs from certain audiences, but Drive’s villains, played by a funny Ron Perlman and a not funny at all Albert Brooks, keep the movie rooted in a reality so tangible you’ll be fully invested in Driver’s mission, and even more so in his revenge. I bet Nicolas Cage was on the edge of his seat.

And what about Nicolas Cage? I’ve groaned at his choices in movies along with the rest of you, but unlike some, I’ll never resort to the criticism that Nicolas Cage can’t act. In the right movie—hopefully in fewer movies, as soon as his finances are in order—Cage is one of my favorites. And once, long ago, in a time we called the Nineties, Nicolas Cage made a movie with a character not so different from Driver: Red Rock West.

John Dahl is essentially done directing feature films. He mainly works in badass TV shows now, like Breaking Bad, Dexter, and Justified. He’s probably better off. His specialty is modern noir, in underrated, well-acted movies like The Last Seduction, Rounders, and Red Rock West, which I think is one of Nicolas Cage’s best movies, and likely one of his littlest seen.

Cage plays Michael, a drifter who winds up in Red Rock, looking for work. He’s mistaken for a hitman by man (J.T. Walsh) who wants his wife dead. Michael takes the money and finds the woman (Lara Flynn Boyle), but warns her instead of killing her. She offers her own payment if Michael will kill her husband instead. And just as they put a plan into motion, and start an affair, wouldn’t you know it, the real hitman comes to town. Sounds like a fun time, right? Sold yet? How about: the hitman is played by Dennis Hopper.

You can tell Red Rock West is neither as understated, nor as charmingly audacious as Drive. But Cage as the anti-hero, with no past, possibly no future, doing the wrong things to make sure the true bad guys suffer first? That’s the kind of stuff he should be doing all the time. It might be what he thinks he’s doing all the time already. And it’s definitely what he’ll be after once he sees Drive. You know he’s already shopping online for a sweet scorpion jacket. He’s not the only one.

Drive: A

Red Rock West: B+