Drive

(Image credit: Richard Foreman Jr SMPSP)

Oozing attitude and charisma, Ryan Gosling is the nameless hero at the wheel of this terrific, precision-tooled thriller

Oozing attitude and charisma, Ryan Gosling is the nameless hero at the wheel of this terrific, precision-tooled thriller.

Calm on the surface, but tightly coiled beneath, he's a Hollywood stunt driver and mechanic by day and a getaway driver by night.

He's very much a lone wolf until he befriends his vulnerable neighbour (Carey Mulligan), a young mother whose husband is in prison. But his efforts to help the family lead him into taking part in a blood-soaked heist with fateful consequences.

Gosling pulls off his role with aplomb and the supporting cast is also superb, with particularly striking performances from Christina Hendricks, as a hard-bitten gang moll, and Albert Brooks, as an affable but menacing mobster.

At times, director Nicolas Winding Refn's hard-boiled thriller is sickeningly violent (you may want to look away when Gosling lets loose in a lift), but it is also utterly mesmerising and immensely stylish.

A thriller that lingers long in the mind.