Drive: Buckle up for one hell of a ride!

A mysterious man known only as Driver works as a Hollywood stuntman by day and a getaway driver at night. His isolated life is interrupted when he falls for his new neighbor and is further complicated when his boss indirectly gets him involved with some shady characters.

Drive is one of those films you either love or hate, there is no in between. Those that hate it will point to the lack of sustained action, lack of an abundance of dialogue and an unsatisfying ending as the reasons for their dislike. They feel as though the film is unworthy of the hype that has been put upon it by critics. However these detractors are missing the things that make Drive worth that hype and definitely worth at least one viewing.

First, there is action, and plenty of it! Director Nicolas Winding Refn did not overwhelm the audience with fist-fights and multi-car pile ups, but used what action was there to punctuate the story of Driver (yes, that is the name of Ryan Gosling's character). Next there was the dialogue and acting. Winding Refn was able to let his actors grow into their roles, giving them a depth that most action thriller characters sorely lack. And while it is true that critical parts of the movie could be considered dialogue-lite, the performances by Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Albert Brooks and the rest of the cast were spot on and effective, giving the audience more than enough to emotionally invest in what was taking place on screen. Also, there is something to be said about how less might be more in regards to dialogue. Too often, it seems, filmmakers choose to inundate the audience with an overabundance of dialogue when two or three lines are more efficient. An example of this in Drive was near the end of the film when Driver called Irene to confess his feelings for her. Rather than laying on the full blown uber-sweet romantic drivel so readily employed by most filmmakers, Winding Rifn and screenwriter Hossein Amini kept it simple and honest (and they kept that bit of dialogue to two or three lines). The affect was more heart-wrenching than anything a long two minutes of fluff could produce. Finally, there were the foreign film sensibilities Winding Rifn imbued in the film. Scenes were allowed to develop rather than being jammed down the audiences throat with no rhyme nor reason to them and each shot was so full of meaning and metaphor that one just wanted to keep watching. Director of Photography Newton Thomas Sigel was able to give the movie a distinct look (glossy, 1980's slick are the best phrases to describe it) that added to its overall appeal.

Drive was a unique take on the action thriller, a film which was not afraid to bypass some of the tired conventions of the genre in order to give the audience a smart, artsy, thrilling rush of a ride.

Grade: A

The Hills Have Eyes: and you need to know that this film has a nasty streak to it!

Horror films are a staple of Hollywood but recently some of them have taken on quite a rough edge to them. These uber-gore fest seem to be more concerned with inventing new ways to realistically crack a skull rather than make the audience freak themselves out by pulling the camera away just as the monster approaches its victim. The Hills Have Eyes is certainly one film that did not hold back and wanted to show you every nasty little detail of its gruesome universe.

On their way out to California, a family takes an unknown desert road in order to save time and wind up fighting for their own survival against a group of grotesque hill dwellers who have devolved into blood-thirsty monsters.

If a gritty, no-holds-barred, gore-fest is what you’re in the mood for, then The Hills Have Eyes is for you. This re-imagining of the original low budget Wes Craven classic was so intense and unflinching when delivering its visceral ferocity that even the most harden horror film fanatic might have to turn away at points. The absolute beauty in which the film was shot only heightened the grisly nature of “The Hills”. The desert became something of an alien landscape, further hindering the family and aiding the hill dwellers. Unfortunately the film spoiled its opulent look by failing to capitalize upon it and tell an equally stunning story. These characters and the film's plot have been done to death (not only because it was a remake) by a million other directors and writers. It seems the only way to put a unique spin on a horror film anymore is to see how bloody you can make it, damning the characters and story to the background or sometimes dispensing with them all together. There was no grey area in the film, there were good guys (Bobby, Doug, Brenda, etc.) and bad guys (the hill dwellers), but to make an audience take a journey with those good guys it would have been worthwhile to make them believable and human instead of cardboard and clichéd. That didn’t happen here so when you get down to it, The Hills Have Eyes was nothing more than a faux snuff film that some of the ADD generation can watch over and over again in order to see their favorite death scenes.

Grade: C-