Drive review

 Number 442 on the top 1000 films of all time is the action drama film 'Drive.'

Ryan Gosling plays an unnamed character only referred to as the Driver. By day he is a stuntman and a mechanic for a man named Shannon (Bryan Cranston.) By night he moonlights as a getaway driver for heists. He becomes attracted to his neighbour Irene  (Carey Mulligan.) However, her husband Standard (Oscar Isaac) has just been released from prison and owes a lot of money to the wrong people. Standard decides to rob a pawn shop to get the money. Upon learning this, the Driver becomes his wheelman. But things quickly go south.

There is no denying that this is a stylish thriller. It has a great neon aesthetic that gives it a very synthetic, timeless look. It could be in the eighties or the modern-day or the not so distant future. However, I didn't particularly like this film and that was for one simple reason: tone.

Tone is important for any film and this film's tone was overly-dark. I get it. It's a thriller. It's not a comedy. I wasn't expecting laugh-a-minute, but I was hoping for one or two jokes. All throughout the film there was a foreboding sense of doom and at times this fog became too much. It needed some comic relief to help disperse it. This could be some black humour for the audience or maybe some jokes between the characters. It would have been nice to have at least seen them smile. Everybody was so serious all the time.

And Ryan Gosling encapsulated this seriousness. The Driver is the strong, silent type. An emotionless man who finds a cause to fight for. But the Driver felt more like a robot than an actual human being. It was like the evil terminator from T2 had decided to pack in killing John Connor and start robbing banks instead. It was a difficult character to get behind. And I don't think this is Ryan Gosling's fault. Having starred in rom-coms like the Notebook or La-La land, he is obviously capable of playing lighter roles, but he didn't even get the chance here. The gratuitous violence did nothing to help the overly-dark tone either.

Earlier on, I referenced the eighties. And that was very intentional. The musical score contains a lot of synth-wave - a genre reminiscent of the eighties. But I don't think it was employed well. There were these long scenes accompanied by synth-wave music. Except for the music playing there was very little else happening within these scenes. It became very tedious after a while.

Aesthetically the film looked great. But the overly-black tone coupled with the extended instrumental sequences made it all more style over substance.

The 400 Blows review

 Number 174 on the top 1000 films of all time is Francois Chauffert's 1959 coming of age drama 'The 400 Blows.'

Antoine Daniel (Jean-Pierre Lenard) is a school boy growing up in Paris. Plagued by behavioural problems, he acts up in schools and causes trouble at home.

The 400 Blows is considered to be one of the best French films of all time, but I am at a loss to why. Partly based on Chauffert's own troubled childhood, The 400 Blows did remind me of Ingrid Bergman's work. Granted it wasn't as nearly as abstract or surreal, but the same themes of introspection and a misunderstood character rebelling against a tyrannical system were present. 

Now I have no problem with character-driven films that study characters in depth. But for these to work, the characters in question have to be interesting and empathetic. Antoine Daniel was neither of these. He is barely even a rebel. Stealing type writers and writing on school walls hardly makes him a rebel without a cause. On that note Rebel Without a Cause explores similar themes and does it so much more effectively, mainly because of James Dean's brilliant performance. I really believed the alienation and isolation he was feeling.

Not so with Jean-Pierre Lenard. I just didn't care about him. Later on, upon trying to return the typewriter, he is arrested. His despairing parents send him to a psychiatric institution where it's revealed that he was an illegitimate child born to a mother that didn't want him. While this goes some way to explaining his behaviour, I think it came too late in the film. I had just stopped caring at this point. Plus Antoine reveals how his mother would shout at him, but I saw little evidence of this. Rather, his parents seemed to resort to bribes to control his behaviour as opposed to violence.

Honestly, I thought Antoine was just another poxy little kid causing trouble for the sake of it and the 400 Blows was a pale imitation of its far superior predecessors.