Awesome / Drive (2011)

• The Driver himself. He's of course an excellent driver. Everything he does is very precise and calculated. His past is a mystery, but you know just by watching him that he's very used to the risky criminal underworld he works in. And as the movie progresses, you get the feeling that this quiet figure is a just a powderkeg waiting to go off. When he finally does, it's downright scary.
  • On top of this, he wears a jacket with a yellow scorpion insignia on it whenever he's working. This gives the character a strange superhero quality.
• The first sequence in which we see The Driver in the zone as a getaway driver for two thieves. Using his own wits and a police radio, The Driver is able to maneuver around the city and completely lose the cop cars and helicopters that are hunting them without ever making a scene. It fully displays his Consummate Professional persona.
• This exchange between The Driver and Standard:
  The Driver: I'll see you in five minutes.
  Standard: ... I'll see you in four.
• The film's actual chase scene following Standard's sudden death. The Driver is under a lot more pressure, since it is daylight and a high-speed chase on a busy road. He's still able to outrun his pursuer, at one point he's even speeding backwards in reverse with the other car nearly hitting his front bumper. Eventually he's able to cause the other car to violently crash, allowing him to escape. There's a very nice slow motion shot of Blanche sitting stunned in the backseat while the other car is spinning in the air behind them.
• The Driver is ambushed in his motel room. He catches on to what's about to happen only seconds before it does. Once Blanche is killed, he immediately throws the bed's mattress against the front door to prevent the other hitman from entering. He gets winged by a shotgun blast from the first hitman, barely reacts and backs against a wall. As soon as the first hitman comes out of the bathroom, The Driver knocks the shotgun out of his hands, beats him down onto the toilet and then he grabs the metal rod that the window blinds were hanging from and stabs him in the throat with it. By the time the other hitman is able to get into the room, The Driver's already got the shotgun and blows him away. This happens in the space of a minute, not counting slow motion.
• The Driver casually walks into the back room of Cook's strip club, grabs Cook's hand and smashes it with a hammer. Though The Driver's treatment is very harsh, it's quite satisfying seeing it happen to the guy who stabbed both Standard and Blanche in the back, especially when The Driver starts terrorizing him with the bullet Cook had previously used to threaten Benecio, to the point that he forces him to swallow it.
  • It's also awesome for the fact that this scene takes place in a strip club dressing room full of topless women, yet all the tension and focus is on The Driver who stands in the center of the room.
• The elevator scene. While it may also count as a Tearjerker and as Nightmare Fuel, it's still awesome in it's entire execution from the time the Driver and Irene kiss to the moment the doors close between them forever.
  • It actually is a legit Moment of Awesome for the Driver; earlier in the scene, you see a shot from his POV where he notices a gun in the man's jacket. From context, it's immediately obvious that the man's there to murder them, even though Irene isn't made aware of this. He stomped the man's head to save their lives, not just as a random act of violence.
• The scene where The Driver rams Nino's car off a cliff.
  The Driver: [to Bernie] You know the story about the scorpion and the frog? Your friend Nino didn't make it across the river.
• The Driver vs. Bernie. Their last civil conversation at a restaurant is intercut with the scene following this conversation where the two get into a fight in the money exchange, ending with Bernie dead and The Driver wounded.

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