The set-up is intriguing: movie stunt driver Ryan Gosling moonlights as a getaway driver for whoever is willing to pay for his services.  He becomes attached to a neighbor woman (Carey Mulligan) with a young son (Kaden Leos) — and through her husband (Oscar Isaac), just released from prison, a fateful holdup attempt.  When the holdup goes bad, the driver has to protect Mulligan from baddies Ron Perlman and Albert Brooks (!).  Actually, one of the joys of this movie is watching comic Brooks wangle himself a longer movie career by delivering a knockout performance.

The movie’s finest sequence happens early, as Gosling deftly plies his trade after a robbery, sliding in and out of the city’s shadows as the cops hunt them on the streets and from the sky.  This sequence proves that Gosling is smart and capable, providing the necessary gravitas for the melodrama and violence that is to follow.

It would have worked well as a fairly standard, straightforward crime drama, but director Nicolas Winding Refn fouls the thing up with totally unnecessary, distracting elements, all mainly shot in annoying slow motion.  His use of music is especially irritating, featuring songs with lyrics that seem to be commenting on the onscreen action.  The cinematography is nice but it’s far too arty for this sort of movie.  And Refn’s insistence on slow motion indicates that he needs to go back to film school to learn how to use the technique properly.  Finally, what’s with the mask when Gosling goes after Ron Perlman?  Since nobody but Perlman ever sees him in it, I cannot imagine why Gosling felt the need to use it — it looks ridiculous.  Finally, finally, the film’s ending is a cheat.

There are worthwhile elements spread throughout Drive, but this is yet another case of an “auteur” director screwing up a decent property by allowing his “technique” to overwhelm the material.  If the technique is masterly, such largesse can be forgiven, and even worshipped.  But here the result is maddening, because the premise was so promising.  Let’s hope that Nicolas Winding Refn can learn to curb his showoffiness and tell a story properly, without distracting fanfare.  ✰ ✰ ½.  14 Oct. 2011.