Drive

Ryan Gosling's Driver has no equal. He has no opposite to set himself against, no nemesis to confound him. He's alone. As much as Drive is about a heist tumbling out of control, it's equally about a man trying to find his place and create roots. Driver has at least three jobs - a wheelman of supernatural ability, a day-play stunt-driver, and a mechanic. He demands distance as a criminal, his only interaction a neutral rundown of what his client can expect. His movie role that of marginalised crew, made-up in a Matt Dillon fright mask, staging lethal car crashes for incompetent directors. At the garage he labours under the paternal gaze of Bryan Cranston's Shannon, an inveterate fuck-up with ambition beyond his means.

Shannon aspires to mold and govern, but his influence over Driver is limited, even laughable. Like all the other males in Drive, proximity to the Driver is withering. He makes them seem small and weak. Visually, Drive shares the sodium lamp fizz of 70s/80s chase thrillers like The Driver, or To Live and Die in LA. There's even a coiled mechanism that recalls the mission minds of The Terminator's time travellers. Structurally though, Drive is closer to mysterious stranger films like Shane, Yojimbo, or A Fistful of Dollars. A self-actualised island personality exploring its tender urges in the midst of slaughter. Total psychosis working a protector kink. It's never going to work out for Driver, but at least he tried.