If you think the sunny panoramic views of Hollywood you see in films or documentaries about the Kardashians latest bikini wax are real you are sadly mistaken. The reality is actually a world more evil than the land of Mordor, with a war ravaged landscape in which feral children roam the streets eating the bone marrow of their parents and searching for old movies to remake, whilst Rupert Murdoch sits on a throne of badger blood and eats the brains of the creatives. If theres no repetitive profit in it; it isnt happening. (Ive never written for a public website before, so I best clarify for legal reasons that this ISNT true; well actually I dont know, Ive never been to Hollywood and Sky News does a lot of coverage about badger culling.) You may wonder where Im going with this; but you see in this world of repetitive tosh in which you go to the cinema to have your brain bludgeoned with the same, rusty spanner, nothing is more evil than the false idealisation of a movie which trades clichéd, noir/indie film style credentials in for story, which critics then applaud as genius when it is actually just lazy. These days it seems you could have a still camera shot of an obese man caressing his genitals and it would be celebrated as genius, whereas if Michael Bay did this and added acid to the proceedings, did a million cuts, angles and a topless fashion model stroking a boarhounds dick it would be critiqued as stupid. Which it would be; but its the same non-story, a difference in style gives it credentials apparently. This brings us to Nicolas Winding Refn'sDrive, a production Total Film farcically recently voted as its best of 2011; a title it doesnt deserve. When in reality, its a self-obsessed, critic appropriate film without a good story: just a nice style. Its infuriating that films can now blag credentials by being as vapid as possible; this film lacks any emotional punch, conflict development or way of gaining audience investment in the characters or story. It plays out like a glorification of indie culture Our characters dont have names. Look how indie we are! Our main character barely talks, LOOK HOW INDIE WE ARE! and repetitive mesh of going from an, admittedly, brilliantly tense and well edited driving scene to, another brilliantly tense and well edited driving scene. By the time the film is finished you end up so on edge you start chewing on the cinema seats or making love to a cup holder for sexual release. The only credential this film has is that it looks nice; apparently enough to give it as much critical acclaim as possible. The performances are underwhelming, Carey Mulligan is just an add on to give the masculinity driven any-excuse-to-show-gore display a bit of widespread appeal, the criminals are all wonderfully stupid and Ron Perlmans performance is so bad you feel like watching Disaster Movie to see a better display of acting talent, or maybe scolding your retinas so that you dont have to watch it any more. Ryan Gosling is irritatingly silent and smug to the extent you want to enter the film, slap him across the face repetitively with a large piece of wood screaming, You were in Blue Valentine! How are you this bad now?! to which you would probably only get smug silence in return; leading to a next day headline of Angry film goer brutally murders Ryan Gosling with a piece of fishing equipment. Another one of the films great shames, as he was brilliant in Blue Valentine and hits moments of brilliance in this with his patented most expressive eyes ever seen style of acting, but then he just descends once more in to self satisfied silence, and the anger builds again. Its a shame really; a film which starts with one of the best bits of cinema Ive ever seen and gives the promise of being a character study about a man devoid of emotion whilst relishing the chance to put himself in the line of fire, becomes a self-indulgent, art show of a style guaranteed to gain creative plaudits. When the ending comes and you arent sure whether he is alive or dead, due to the sacrifice of emotional and story development; you dont only find yourself not worrying about it; you find yourself just not caring. We attended the first ever press screening of Drive at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Our review HERE.