'Drive' (2011) is Grand Theft Auto on the silver screen.

'Drive' last year's mesmerising neo-noir thriller from Nicholas Windong Refn is million-selling game franchise Grand Theft Auto adapted for the big screen. SPOILERS

1. The Driver - a stand-in for the player's character in GTA. In San Andreas and GTAIV, the RPG elements mean that you can spend a long time just growing your character: going on dates, going to the gym, getting a haircut, doing jobs - some legal, some not - and so on. Then, out of nowhere, you might decide to assault a civilian and stomp them until their blood seeps across the pavement. Just because. It might (and I really hope it is) be entirely at odds with your personality, but there is it: you just squashed prostitute. The Driver, the nameless protagonist in Drive, is a lot like this. He doesn't say much, he splits his time between working in a garage, as a stunt driver and as a getaway driver, and seems like a nice enough guy. Then he'll flip a switch, and excessively murder an assailant, or turn mean and threatening at a moments notice. It's like he's controlled by a person who, due to lack of consequences, decides to go on a rampage out of nowhere.

1. It takes inspiration from 1980s set Vice City - the glorious pink typeface that adorns the promotional material is Vice City through and through; the scorpion jacket The Driver wears throughout and the Cadillac he drives is retro in feel; approach to technology is old-school; the neon hues and gaudiness also feel very 1980s; the retro soundtrack is also unashamedly 1980s

1. The Driver's missions feel like videogame missions. The opening cat-and-mouse car chase between The Driver and the L.A.P.D feels like a stealth mission: the pang of worry The Driver (or at least the audience) feels when the spotlight singles out his car is not unlike the big exclamation mark that appears above enemies heads in the Metal Gear Solid series. There are on-foot missions: protect Irene from the hitman; defeat the shotgun-wielding thugs; extract information from Cook; the final showdown with Bernie. There are driving missions: the aforementioned night-chase and the escape from the anonymous pursuers after the botched robbery.

1. The cosmopolitan array of characters - The white people (The Driver, Irene, Blanche), the Latinos (Standard Gabriel, Benicio), the Jews (Bernie and Nino). I can't remember any black or Asian characters, so maybe it's not that cosmopolitan, but it is still quite. GTA is full of characters of every race and creed imaginable.

1. The police give up easily - after The Driver escapes in the opening sequence (possibly too easily: they did have a night-sun after all) the police seem to give up. You can almost see his wanted rating blinking out towards zero. There is no follow-up to the numerous bodies he leaves lying around, and at the end Bernie doesn't even mention any the trouble with the law The Driver might face should he stick around in town.

1. Have I mentioned that it revolves around crime yet? That's an obvious one. 
2. A variety of cars
3. Overhead shots of downtown L.A that look exactly like the early top-down GTA games.

P.S I know all the points are labelled point 1, blogger has a whack formatting system that meant I couldn't insert images between bulletpoints.