Drive

The film’s enigmatic protagonist, the nameless driver (Ryan Gosling) referred to only as “the Kid,” is first seen as the exceptionally resourceful driver of the getaway car for a nighttime robbery in downtown Los Angeles. Soon we also see him working as a stunt driver for the movies and as an all-purpose employee in an auto shop whose proprietor is a gimpy-legged mechanic and car customizer (Bryan Cranston). Things get a crucial complication when “the Kid” begins to take an apparently protective interest in his neighbor Irene and her young son. Irene (Carey Mulligan) is married to Standard (Oscar Isaac), who is in prison when “the Kid” first notices his wife, but who returns home soon after. Meanwhile, Shannon is trying to get a local gangster (a baleful Albert Brooks) to put up the money for a racing car that the Gosling character will drive. All those characters and their assorted storylines collide via another theft and getaway, this time one that has multiple unforeseen consequences. The second half of Drive descends into some brutally generic violence, but nearly everything else in the film runs slyly against the grain of conventional expectations. Cinemark 14. Rated R