Goddamn but I loved this movie. Walter Hill takes a bare-bones story about a professional getaway driver and applies an adept artist's eye in his cinematography that remarkably enhances the material; as do the performances of Ryan O'Neal and Bruce Dern. I know Nicolas Winding Refn didn't write the script for Drive, and that he claims he hasn't seen The Driver, but Refn's writer definitely has. The entire opening of Drive is almost wholesale lifted from The Driver.

In any event, an action-packed gearhead's delight featuring a gritty noir(ish) story and phenomenal performances makes The Driver one of my favorite discoveries of this still infant 2012.