Drive

Now here's a film worth seeing: "Drive". It seems slow at times yet it drags you along excitedly, you are drawn into the spell of the chases and the violence. Is it excessively violent? In a review by Anthony Lane for The New Yorker he doesn't so much think it is excessive but that it takes your mind off the point of the action. He argues that the maiming of James Stewart in a western in which a villain shoots Stewart's hand so that he won't be able to do what he does well again i.e working the loand or shooting a gun with a fast draw. If the director had shown us the blood and gore when the bullet goes into the hand we would have that vicious act in mind whereas if, as he does, show only the painful response of Stewart's features we dwell not so much on the violence of the act but to what affect it has and will have to the character, that is, to the story as it unfolds. The violence in "Drive" is very much to the fore, presented in gory detail, blood everywhere, razors slicing arms etc. Horrible. Yet the film is terrific.
Basically it's a familiar tale about a man with no name meeting a family with a young son and becoming so attached to them that he wants to protect them from people who want to harm them. Can't help thinking of "Shane". He was man with almost no name, just one name. He came along from nowhere and with the ability to be as violent or, in this case, more violent, than those who wish to harm the family. In both cases you have a man with an attachment to no one who finds a family to love.
Anthony Lane is of course right: the violence is too blatant and takes away from the scenes any moralistic point. The only time in the film that a violent act is done but is not seen in close-up is when the hero, Driver, kicks a man to death in a lift. We hear it but we see only his back as he puts the boot in. This is an important scene because we not only see his back but, over his shoulder, we see the woman he is protecting drawing slowly away realising at last the nature of this man who has come to them as protecting agent. Or maybe angel.