History Film / Drive2011

* DropTheHammer: The Driver brings along a carpenter's claw hammer and uses it to break a gangster's arms, then threatens to drive a bullet into his skull. The hammer's image has become iconic of the film, and is known for inspiring many fan-made posters to evoke it.

* LegitimateBusinessmensSocialClub: "Nino's Pizza" is a thinly-veiled meeting place for his low-level ring of thugs and mob associates. It's actually played ''doubly'' straight, as it's also a front for Nino's own persona: he's a former Jewish street tough from Brooklyn who's still aspiring to be an Italian mafioso and burdened with mockery and condescension from his East Coast counterparts.

** After the pawnshop job, the Driver is able to outrun a pursuing car in reverse, while the other car is driving forwards. The reverse gear in all cars is very short, meaning it's meant for quick movement and not high speed driving.
*** Note that he doesn't actually 'outrun' the other car while in reverse - he stays in R ''just long enough for them to catch up'' and start ramming him, then pulls a Reverse J-Turn and leaves them barrelling off the road while he sails around the hairpin bend. If Driver hadn't planned the evasive turn, they would've closed in and rammed him off the road easily, and are a split-second from doing so right before he whips around.

* WineIsClassy: Driver's rich screenwriter friend Manny wears old thrift-store clothes and has no respect or interest for most trappings of wealth,
save for his taste for incredible and exotic wines.

* OralFixation: The Driver is almost always seen shewing on a toothpick, and even offers them to others at various points.

* HalfwayPlotSwitch: Toes the line between this and TwoActStructure - the first half of the film is more-or-less a noirish romance about a quiet but nonthreatening getaway driver migrating into the stock car racing circuit, bonding with the single mom next door, and nervously trying to stay on the good side of much more intimidating career-criminals. After [[spoiler:the WhamLine at the diner, it steadily becomes clear that the Driver himself is a hardened killer that the gangsters(and audience) have grossly underestimated; the stock car racing subplot is abandoned and the film is mostly a very dark, violent crime thriller from there, with the characters trying to salvage any embers of sunshine they can.]]

This film is not to be confused with the 1997 [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive_%281998_film%29 Marc Dacascos film of the same name]].

* TheAlcoholic: Invoked all over the novel but surprisingly averted(for a neo-noir) in the film - the literary versions of Driver, Shannon, the Doc, Cook, Manny the screenwriter and several other characters all drink profound amounts of beer, scotch and wine in multiple scenes, in bars or at home, and with only occasional effects(if any) on their efficacy(Shannon can still drive incredibly after a half-dozen rounds, Manny needs Driver to give him a ride, and the Doc is such an alcoholic he needs multiple HairOfTheDog drinks just to stop his hands shaking enough to operate). Inversely, in the entire film, Driver is only seen drinking coffee or water(and is possibly TheTeetotaler), Shannon's main vice is cigarettes, and the only depictions of booze at all are casual beers in party scenes or Bernie Rose sitting down with one glass of liquor after a particularly dark day.

[[caption-width-right:350:''[[TagLine There are no clean getaways.]]'']]

* OutDamnedSpot:
** Multiple times characters are shown cleaning their hands of grease, blood, etc. When the Driver is reluctant to shake Bernie's hand because his hands are dirty with grease, Bernie quips that his hands are "dirty", too.
** Averted with the Driver's jacket which he never cleans and walks around with in broad daylight even when it's stained in blood. The closest he gets to cleaning it is a quick dip in the ocean when [[spoiler:he murders Nino by drowning him]].