DRIVE

There's a touch of Steve McQueen about the ultra-laconic loner played, with nary a bat of an eyelid, by Ryan Gosling in Drive.

Director Nicolas Winding Refn's artful L.A. action thriller, adapted from James Sallis's short noir novel, stars Gosling as Driver, a grease monkey/stunt driver/getaway man who falls in love with a vulnerable young mother, Irene (Carey Mulligan), while her husband's in stir. When the latter is released and forced by gangsters to rob a pawnshop, Driver volunteers as his wheelman to protect Irene and her young son from Mob threats. The heist goes horribly wrong, and Driver must resort to extreme violence.

There are dreamily poetic interludes between the chasesand murders. Just when it seems Refn is indulging the bloodletting, he subtly obscures one killing in surf and another in shadow.

The most enticing element, though, is the slow-burning romance—Mulligan says more by putting on a barrette than some actresses would with a speech.

GRAHAM FULLER