Drive: Risco Duplo

A terceira visualização no cinema confirmou definitivamente para mim que decidir entre quatro e cinco estrelas é inútil aqui. Drive: Risco Duplo é um desafio para o cinéfilo. Para debater, para explorar tomada a tomada, frase a frase. Não se pode colocá-lo numa categoria qualitativa, não se pode não admirá-lo. É uma obra hipnoticamente calma e lenta, e, ao mesmo tempo, ferve com emoção e tensão. Trabalha com vários géneros, mas não pode ser claramente classificado em nenhum deles. Mantém a maior distância do seu personagem principal, não nos permitindo compreendê-lo ou sentir a sua relação com a rapariga por causa da qual ele opta pela violência extrema e gráfica para a proteger. Esta violência torna-se assim chocantemente autoindulgente, mas em contraste com a poética romântica circundante, irresistivelmente catártica. Através da cinematografia e da música extravagantes, o filme esconde a importância dos diálogos, que são o pilar da sua história. Serve-os de forma escassa, quase fragmentada, mas define perfeitamente os personagens com a primeira, segunda linha. Os atores são escolhidos originalmente, inesperadamente, e do seu estatuto de estrelas apagadas ou de eternos papéis secundários, o realizador, com a arte de Tarantino, faz deles as encarnações de personagens que ficarão gravadas na sua memória para sempre. Reifn tem o que é preciso para ser o novo Tarantino. Mas Drive: Risco Duplo ainda não é a sua Pulp Fiction. Vai precisar de mais peças no tabuleiro de xadrez e de uma história mais complicada. (23/11/2011)

For me, a completely bombastic demonstration of what a director with a vision can do from forgettable genre spectacles. Refn projected his fascination with inaccessible heroes, which is prolonged by passion and also by the fascination with stories in which the hero selflessly sacrifices himself. His pagan relishing of vibrations long after the main action of the shot is once again pure happiness, not to mention the beautifully shot car chases and captivating atmosphere of a Los Angeles night. Again, it should be underlined that for Refn, there is no main logic and story - these are just secondary links to the extremely strong scenes elaborated down-to-the-last detail. I look forward to the listing of all the nonsense that analyst viewers can bear, thinking that there is some consistency and story refinement in Drive. What fascinates me to the core: although this time the characters really talk a lot (they are Americans after all), the essentials about their motifs are expressed by Refn with a hint, gesture, facial expression. He simply remained Nordic, even in a field that is supremely "Hollywood". While it's a film with a completely accessible story, Refn made it into an uncontracted author's manifesto and a festival of subversive image-sound connectivity. I just love that Danish boy! Maybe he should make a Bond film. (07/09/2011)

It’s hypnotic (almost everyone talked about the soundtrack after leaving the movie theater), clings to details (cinematography, sound), and constantly goes against established audience expectations. When I got up from my seat, sweat was pouring off me and it wasn't just the heat in the movie theater. (14/09/2011)

I haven’t seen a better film in the cinema this year. A dreamy, sad artsy gangster flick with an extremely charismatic protagonist and a perfect soundtrack. It gave me goosebumps, and more than once. Drive is basically a compilation of Refn’s previous films (I’d dutifully watched them all before). It’s like Pusher shot with the same slick cinematography of Valhalla Rising, spiced up with a blend of the music and the images of Bronson, and mixed with the ambiguous atmosphere of Fear X. A film that can be easily described as “beautiful”, even if fingers are smashed with a hammer, heads are shot and throats are cut. For me, a masterpiece without any flaws, but, as it’s been said, it’s certainly not for everyone. I’ve been playing “A Real Hero” on repeat for an hour. (16/09/2011)

A ride that slams you hard into your seat and doesn't want to let go for a long time. Suspenseful to the bursting point, more action-packed than Michael Mann and ideas packed into the last second. We have seen plenty of gangsters and silent heroes on the screen for quite some time. But to simply have to run back to the cinema the next day to watch a movie again, that has never happened to me before. Even if I had to just observe the continuity of slow scenes or savor every tone of the soundtrack. (16/09/2011)