Drive shifts into high gear

A heist needs a few things to be a decent heist: a plan, some guns, a guy to crack the vault – and a driver.

Driving’s a rudimentary skill, like reading and writing. Most of us learn how to do it pretty well at some point. So the driver doesn’t sound like much. But he’s important. You need him to be good enough behind the wheel to burn 200 km/ph and more through crowded city streets with the coppers on your tail.

In Drive, Ryan Gosling is one such wheelman. Well, his character is. Thing is, his character doesn’t actually have a name, so we’ll just call him R-Gos.

R-Gos is a top-shelf grease monkey, a professional stunt driver, and occasionally puts his talents to work as a getaway hound for less scrupulous employers. He’s got skills, and can double-clutch through a swiftly fading orange light like nobody’s business. It’s only right, then, that he eventually gets himself mixed up with the wrong crowd, the wrong bird, and the right car.

Cue automobile insanity. This bad-boy comes vroooming into cinemas on October 27th.