In recent reviews I have produced for The Legionnaire, I have discussed how nostalgia can be an impediment for leading a true Christian life.  A remembrance that evokes a fond feeling can be good in the moment.  Yet, like anything sweet, there is a danger of too much of it.  It can lead to living in the past and forgetting that which God is calling us to in the present.  I give you this brief summation in order to admit that I am not perfect in this regard.  I can tell how it can be a danger to your soul, but so often I expose myself to such risks.  One way I open myself up to spending too long on memory lane is my daily reviewing of my Facebook memories.  While this is of the more benign variety, lately the music I used to share on the social media platform has been appearing on this feed.  It has been fun to go back through songs I used to think were vitally important that people discovered through me.  This thread also reminded me of a tune titled “A Real Hero,” by a band (that I think is) called College & Electric Youth.  It is a reminiscent of the heavily synthesized 1980s sound, which in itself is nostalgic.  Anyway, since I have listened to it again for the first time in a few years, it got me thinking about Drive (2011), the movie in which it can be heard as part of the soundtrack.  Here is my review of that film.

Appropriately enough, the first person we meet in Drive is The Driver (Ryan Gosling).  He explains over the phone to a pair of criminals that with his skills behind the wheel of a car, he can give them a five-minute window to carry out their illicit deeds.  Anything past that and they are on their own.  With this, he picks up a non-descript car from his employer, the mechanic and Hollywood stunt coordinator Shannon (Bryan Cranston), and takes them to a robbery.  Though they make it back to the vehicle within the time window, he still has to evade the authorities, which he successfully does.  Outside of these episodes, he appears to live a normal, quiet life.  When he is not working on cars at Shannon’s shop, The Driver does stunts for Shannon as well.  The word “quiet” should be emphasized, and I do not mean this in a Catholic monk, vow of silence manner, as wonderful as that would be.  Instead, he simply does not talk much throughout the entire movie, relying instead on the gravitas of his thousand-yard stare to convey his thoughts.  It also helps that this is Ryan Gosling playing the part.  He is also unassuming, but willing to help, as he does for his next-door neighbor, Irene Gabriel (Carey Mulligan), and her young son, Benicio (Kaden Leos).  The Driver helps her home with her groceries, and it is in their clipped conversation that we learn about his job as an automobile technician.  This comes in handy when a little while later, she brings her vehicle in for repairs, and he takes her and her son out for, ahem, a drive.  There is a clear attraction between Irene and The Driver, but she is not single.  The father of her son and her husband, Standard Gabriel (Oscar Isaac), is in jail and set to soon be released.  However, The Driver has bigger problems.  In an apparently never-ending quest to make more money, Shannon approaches a pair of mobsters with a proposition.  They are Nino “Izzy” Palozzi (Ron Perlman) and Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks).  Aware of The Driver’s eponymous skills, Shannon puts forward that the two mafiosos finance the wheelman as a stockcar driver.  Once they see The Driver on the track, they put up the money for the racecar, but it also places Shannon in their debt by several thousand dollars.  Meanwhile, after Standard is released, The Driver comes home to find the former convict beaten and bloodied, with Benicio standing nearby, scared.  The Driver takes Standard up to the former’s apartment for first aid.  As he wipes away the blood, Standard lets on that while serving his prison sentence, he had come to owe gangsters for protection.  Now that he is out from behind bars, they are coming to collect.  The Diver requests that he be taken to the people demanding monetary tribute from Standard.  The Driver is told that they want Standard to rob a pawn shop.  The Driver says he will help in exchange for leaving Standard and his family alone.  Unfortunately, nothing from this point on goes according to plan.  First, Standard is shot and killed as they attempt to leave the scene of the crime.  Next, the thugs find where The Driver and one other accomplice, Blanche (Christina Hendricks), are hiding.  They come with ill intent and Blanche dies in the process, with The Driver taking them out before escaping.  He turns to Shannon, who offers to talk to Bernie and Izzy.  As it turns out, the heist had been originally planned by Izzy, who had wanted the cash in order to pay off other organized crime families to which he owes money.  The Driver tries to contact Bernie and Izzy to return the million dollars, wanting only to save Benicio and Irene.  Instead, the crime boss sends a hitman after the mom and her child.  Irene watches in horror as The Driver violently kicks in the face of a man who had been about to hurt her.  It also means that Shannon gave Irene’s existence to Bernie and Izzy.  The Driver tells his employer to get out of town, but Bernie murders the mechanic before this can happen.  Seeing this latest death, The Driver realizes that he has to kill them before they do the same to him.  Izzy is dispatched by The Driver pushing the crime boss’ car off a cliff and drowning him.  Bernie’s death is more personal.  After he and The Driver meet, Bernie sticks a knife in the young man’s stomach, but The Driver gets his own blade into the older man’s throat.  The final sequence sees The Driver, severely wounded, driving away, and Irene knocking on his door one last time to no answer.

With the song that I mentioned in the introduction, I wanted The Driver in Drive to be more driven towards doing good. Sorry, I could not resist the wordplay.  Still, I do not wish to make him out to be villainous.  It should also be noted that the movie seems to paint him as a reluctant bad guy, at least when it comes to doing physical violence.  There is a telling scene when he protects Irene from the assassin.  It takes place on an elevator, and she gets off, leaving him standing over a dead body.  Before the door finally closes, they share a look, with her terrified and him standing there as if to say that he had no choice.  The chorus to “A Real Hero,” unsurprisingly, goes, “And you have proved to be a real human being and a real hero.”  I cannot help but think about how at odds this is with Christianity in terms of the movie.  There is the obvious turning the other cheek of Matthew 5:39 when someone strikes you.  As cliché as that verse might be, it is always the correct answer for the salvation of your soul.  It takes the kind of martyr’s courage only a rare few of us have to not what to respond to a blow with a blow.  It is even more challenging when you can do that with love in your heart as Jesus did for those who struck Him during His Passion.  In this arguably unfair light, is The Driver “a real hero,” or just heroic?  Perhaps he needs a little building up?  After all, his actions are selfless.  While I wish he could have used any other means but crime, he volunteers to help Standard in the first place, The Driver’s only thought being the happiness of a young family.  The other aspect that lines up with this assessment is his handling of a million dollars in cash.  His initial idea is to simply return the loot in exchange for Benicio and Irene’s safety.  When that does not go to plan, he offers the money to the mom and her child.  She does not react well to this proposal.  In the end, he drives away from a dead Bernie without taking the bag of dollars.  He does his share of killing in between these actions, but it is in the defense of his new friends.  To encapsulate all this in a more Christian light, he is willing to lay down his life for others, people who were until recently strangers.  That is Christ-like, which is a good phrase for his behavior.  Jesus would seek the betterment of Benicio and Irene, but He would not do such harm to accomplish it, making what The Driver does “Christ-like.”

There are some other objectionable parts to Drive other than a few instances of violence induced blood and gore.  There is a scene that takes place in a strip club dressing room, the nude women in the background being completely unnecessary.  My only other criticism is that while it is punctuated by excitement, there is a lot of not talking in between those moments.  This one is only for true movie enthusiasts, but be warned about the R rated content.