Welcome to 352LuxMag's film reviews, this week we are looking at Nicolas Refn's Drive, an ultra cool thriller with an 80's vibe.

Doubtlessly cool and a touch on the violent side. Drive features terrific performances and a cool directorial showing from Refn.

A getaway driver (Ryan Gosling) is straight-faced, calm, and always in control, he eludes capture through precision and restraint, and when the job’s over he simply walks away. No attachments.

Driver (that's his name as listed in the credits) meets, befriends, and falls for a young woman (Carey Mulligan) and her son who may just be the only real innocents left in Los Angeles.

When her husband is released from jail and forcibly tasked to commit one last robbery to pay off a debt, Driver steps in to assist and thereby deliver mother and son from any further anguish.

As is film lore, things do not go as planned.

Driver is as much in thrall to Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry as it is to Kurosawa.

A nameless anti-hero with an undetermined past is forced into violent action in order to protect those he cares about. It's hardly original, we agree, but the style with which Refn laces the scenes adds a freshness missing from most of the cinematic output in recent years.

Gosling is incredibly soulful in his reluctance to give in to the tide of inevitable violence, Albert Brooks is powerful as an aging mobster keen to leave the butcher's clever behind, but will do so at any cost.

Watch out to for the intelligent sound design where, sound efects and musical cues form just as much tension and character as the actors themselves.

We award this film 4 stars.