Drive Blu Ray

In a word: amazing. Yes, it's a genre film with a simple plot, but based on the sparse novel by James Sallis and filtered through the European sensibilities of Nicolas Winding Refn (Bronson, Valhalla Rising) it becomes so much more. Splattered with the blood of other genres the fairy tale nature of the story - a damsel in distress rescued from an evil king and his warriors by a brave knight in shining armour - takes on a style that places the movie somewhere between the cool blue LA of Michael Mann and the otherworldliness of Leone's spaghetti westerns.

From the neon-pink credits, retro soundtrack to the minimal dialogue, this is a film that proudly wears its influences on its satin-covered sleeve. Hacks steal but geniuses copy, and Refn has made Drive so much more than the sum of its parts. Characters feel like archetypes until the faultless cast give them life that strains at their moulds. Locations seem unrelated - an apartment, a garage, a pizza parlour - until they are tied together by the thin strip of asphalt under Driver's wheels. The plot may be familiar but the love story is so natural, played out in looks and gestures, with the weight of emotion so heavy in what's left unsaid, that it's achingly - hauntingly - beautiful.

It's the beauty that makes the violence all the more shocking. Like a Grimm brothers' fairy tale this is a story that's not afraid to spill blood. Driver lives in a world of physicality and violence - of things that can be smashed apart and put back together. When he's pushed into the criminal world he's tried so hard to stay on the edge of, Driver shows that he's more than capable of pushing back much harder. This isn't needless violence; it's simply the tool he uses to get things done.

This is not film full of car chases, nor is it a movie about a heist gone wrong. Aside from its literal meaning, 'drive' suggests determination, grit and courage in the face of adversity. Drive is about love, and what someone will do to protect it.