Girls who hope to see a romantic Ryan Gosling in Nicolas Winding Refn's new film, "Drive" will be horrified when they watch him brutally stomp a man's head in. Sure, this movie has a love story, but it's a love story that's dark, painful and drenched in blood.

This film is a throwback to the times when action thrillers were more cold and calculating. Compared to a film like "Fast 5," the car chases in this movie seem tame. The movie spends a lot of time inside the car, focusing on the driver as he makes decisions and avoids the police. The chase scenes seem realistic and suspenseful because they are about evasion and escape, instead of blowing stuff up and making a scene.

The tone of the film is very 1980s, from its neon-pink title screen to its synthesizer pop soundtrack. Gosling plays a stunt driver, a career that doesn't really exist anymore in the world of computer-generated special effects, but makes sense in the reality of the film.

There is very little dialogue in the movie. Many of the scenes are filled with prolonged silences in which the faces of the actors say more than they could with words. Gosling's unnamed character rarely speaks, and spends most of the movie brooding intensely while chomping on a toothpick. His relationship with Irene [Carey Mulligan] is not much more than a friendship, but the way they look at each other makes it obvious that there's something more there.

There isn't much of a plot to the film. Gosling finds himself tangled in a botched robbery that he never wanted to be part of, and spends the film trying to get away. It's a plot that we've seen many times before, but it is handled in a different way.

The other characters in the film are fantastic, mainly due to the great cast. Bryan Cranston, from TV's "Breaking Bad," steals every scene he's in as a greasy mechanic that runs the garage that Gosling works at. Comedian Albert Brooks plays a serious and terrifying gangster.

In the end, however, the film focuses mainly on the driver and the impossible situations that he's found himself in. Gosling manages to be both menacing and sympathetic at the same time, which is hard to do. He's a bit of a psychopath, but he does it all in the name of love, and the film definitely makes viewers understand that.

For an arthouse film, the violence is shocking and intense. Gosling's signature gold scorpion jacket gets sprayed with blood multiple times as the movie progresses. Sometimes it comes across as a bit over-the-top, but the movie makes it work.

One of the few issues with the film is the way Gosling's character interacts with Irene. Their relationship makes sense within the context of the film, but the dialogue between them comes off as awkward because there is so much silence after every line.

In the end, this film manages to be both retro and unique, which is refreshing after a summer filled with remakes and sequels. The tone and story of the film is very familiar, but the way that it is handled is different. It is a movie that is punctuated by car chases and brutal violence, but it's the silent scenes in-between that shine.

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