Drive
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jmillerdp — 12 years ago(May 08, 2013 08:47 PM)
I haven't seen "Drive" yet. (Yes, I know, that's crazy, but hey!)
"The Driver" is great! I saw it most recently at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, with Walter Hill in attendance. We got to see a new print too, which looked great! I love the ending of that movie. Classic!
"Thief" is great too! Classic Michael Mann. And, the Tangerine Dream score is too perfect!
"I. Drink. Your. Milkshake! [slurp!] I DRINK IT UP!" - Daniel Plainview - "There Will Be Blood" -
Redux006 — 12 years ago(July 21, 2013 12:52 AM)
Go over to the Drive board and see how many fan boys are talking about what a "brilliant, artistic, masterpiece" Drive is. If you complain about any aspect of the movie, they immediately break into tears and shout how "You just didn't understand it!" as they clutch a copy of the DVD to their breast. Little do they know it's just a carbon copy of Thief, with worse music and a less talented actor in the lead. I did like the action better in Drive though.
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jonc-962-388319 — 11 years ago(May 08, 2014 11:01 AM)
Absolutely. I saw DRIVE first! Then when I saw Thief- I couldn't believe how much it was like watching the total inspiration for Drive.
I love Thief even more! It's a better movie for sure. But DRIVE is also great and also benefits from the great performance of Albert Brooks.
THIEF also has amazing performances and CAAN is the ultimate bad ass!!! This film makes you absolutely love CAAN. He kicks so much ass in this it's amazing. -
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william_pnsn — 10 years ago(October 12, 2015 10:12 AM)
I think Thief's main resemblance to Drive is in it's font style, it's soundtrack, and it's opening scene. Still, I think the opening scenes of Drive and Thief serve to show our characters in their element, but have different tones overall. Drive's opening scene has an impending sense of danger around every corner. I never got the sense that anyone was about to caught during the opening of Thief. I also thought Drive's opening getaway scene was a more nuts and bolts breakdown of how the escape was actually executed than Thief's opening heist was. You get a pretty thorough run down of The Driver's methods in Drive but not so much in Thief.
The big heist in Thief I felt was akin to something like the heist scene in Rififi. Two crews scouting security, infiltrating, and executing a plan. There's nothing like that at all in Drive really.
The soundtracks are also similar in style but different in tone. Tangerine Dream's Thief soundtrack is much more prominent, while Cliff Martinez's Drive soundtrack is a lot more ambient and atmospheric. That's not even mentioning the pop songs in Drive, which underscore it's themes quite a bit and make it distinct from Thief.
Beyond that the more apt comparison to Drive is Walter Hill's The Driver. Both are set in LA, both have stoic hero who says very little but is supernaturally good at a very specific job. Drive and The Driver's protagonist heavily recall La Samourai Jef Costello (The Driver is basically a remake of Le Samourai, while Ryan Gosling's unnamed character shares a lot of Costello's stoicism and mannerisms.) James Caan's Frank is a lot more flamboyant and outwardly aggressive than Gosling's character is.
Drive and The Driver are also both quintessential LA movies and borrow from LA's cinematic charm. Thief is mainly set in Chicago and it's as grimy as it sounds -
SamuelLJedi — 10 years ago(November 21, 2015 10:45 PM)
Drive was ok. Had a few nice things about it visually. But Refn isn't a good dialog writer. Mann knocked it out of the park in a few scenes in Thief. The coffee scene with Jesse and the adoption office scene come to mind. Solid gold. Refn wouldn't know how to make a character say that stuff.