Based on the 80s television series of the same name, Bullet Train director David Leitch has set his sights on a new project, which details the escapades of a Hollywood stuntman who has a side job as a bounty hunter. Sounds awfully similar to a certain Nicolas Winding Refn film that came out in 2011, right? Emily Blunt is attached to the production, as well as…Ryan Gosling.
It sounds like Drive, right? Wrong. Dead wrong. I can’t say I’ve watched any episodes from the show, but if Leitch follows along the same lines as the atmosphere created by the opening titles (a massive explosion fills the screen and a car falls into the water, all to a light-hearted, romantic soundtrack that was apparently used as a device in which to build the show around), this could potentially be a cheesy, A-Team schlock-fest with inconsequential action and irritating one-liners. This also seems like an uncharacteristic choice for Gosling himself. Having cultivated strong silent characters since his breakout performance in Henry Bean’s The Believer, it seems odd to play a figure that will surely be the antithesis of what is perhaps his most iconic role as the monosyllabic, unnamed Driver. During an interview for Drive, Gosling noted that ‘A lot of action movies these days, they’re more action and they have less character. In another interview, the actor significantly observed:
‘I don’t think you need all this talking in movies. Sometimes it’s easier to get the point across if you’re not saying something. Sometimes when you’re talking, it gets in the way of it, and it was a real relief to just take that out of this and let people just watch it and make their own assessments of what they think the characters are going through’
Admittedly, Drive was released over a decade ago. Gosling may well have changed his mind since making these remarks. His recent performance in The Grey Man, a much more action-based film, was far more talkative. Leitch’s recent film, Bullet Train, while fun and watchable, again relied on action scenes and heavy dialogue to drive its narrative rather than leaving any meaningful impressions with its characterisation or visual aesthetic. Refn himself is a huge fan of using visuals to tell a story Nathan than spoken dialogue. Without getting too deep into his colour theory (Refn is colourblind, which probably explains the strong colour palettes in Drive, and particularly Only God Forgives and The Neon Demon), the heavy focus on blues and oranges in Drive told a potent narrative of crime and innocence without saying a single word. While Refn’s hero, like central figure Colt Seavers in The Fall Guy, plays a Hollywood stuntman, Driver is a world away from the good guys of Tinseltown. Shortly after being cast as the Driver, Gosling described the character as a man who is ‘lost in the mythology of Hollywood and he becomes an amalgamation of all the characters he admires’. Hollywood conventions of good guys and bad guys are challenged by a character who has become disengaged with reality.
Even the nature of Drive’s production goes against the Hollywood system. While the film was initially backed with a big budget by Universal, alongside a talky scrreenplay with Hugh Jackman attached to play the central role, Refn severely cut down the dialogue in the final draft. The director is dyslexic, and gave the script a minimalist edge. The film was produced with a modest $15 million budget, still greater than the total amount of funding Refn’s previous films had received.
Leitch (a stuntman himself), on the other hand, at least going by his track record, is an action over character kind of guy, with much bigger budgets behind his belt (Bullet Train’s budget is estimated between $85-90m). And that’s not to disparage his work. John Wick, Atomic Blonde and Deadpool 2 have great action sequences, but the balance of style over substance in those entries largely swings in the former direction. Drive could be accused of this exact criticism, but I think there’s far more nuance to Refn’s action sequences – and his depiction of violence – than many critics have stated. While The Fall Guy may turn out to be a fun action film, it’ll most likely diverge significantly from the minimalist arthouse film that gave Refn – and his star actor – a major boost into the big leagues of cinema.
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