Drive – 1.5 stars

George Clooney took his run at McQueen in last years’ dull, arty The American. At least Clooney was old enough to play a weathered “man-with-no-name” zombie. This year, it is Ryan Gosling’s turn in Drive.

Dull, arty and ridiculous, the addition of a grating soundtrack, gratuitous and utterly pointless violence, and Gosling, who has sublimated his personality to play an automaton.

You see, he drives.

For a minute, one wonders if he is the lethal, charmless version of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man.

No such luck.

The film is also marred by plot twists that make no sense. For example, a professional killer stalking Gosling in an elevator allows our hero to give his gal a loving, long kiss, during which he could have stabbed Gosling in the back.  As a result of his inexplicably polite waiting, he gets his head stomped into a bloody pulp.  Later, Gosling chases a career criminal onto the beach, said criminal being strangely unarmed, and then, said criminal  attempts to escape — by sea.

Mix in scenes chosen for the picturesque, Brian Cranston phoning it in as the old codger who gets Gosling “in too deep”, and Albert Brooks as an offbeat heavy, and the entire endeavor seems forced and inauthentically hip.

I love small crime movies, particularly moody and elegant ones like Layer Cake or The Limey or The Way of the Gun or Sexy Beast.

Drive isn’t a third of any of those films.