Albert Brooks wears a Rolex Datejust

Albert Brooks plays Bernie Rose against type. Brooks built his career on nervous comic protagonists in Lost in America and Defending Your Life, and Nicolas Winding Refn cast him in Drive as a soft-spoken Los Angeles gangster who keeps a straight razor in his pocket and uses it. The casting works because Brooks underplays the menace. Bernie does not have to perform danger. He is danger.

The watch on Bernie's wrist is a Rolex Datejust, the most quietly universal status piece a Rolex can be. Introduced in 1945 to mark the company's fortieth anniversary, the Datejust standardized the look of the modern dress-sport watch: a 36mm steel or two-tone case, a date wheel at three, the Cyclops magnifier, a Jubilee bracelet. By the 2010s, the Datejust had become shorthand for "I made my money in the previous century and I am not interested in your opinion." That reads as exactly right for Bernie.

Bernie is not flashy. He is established. He has been doing this long enough that he does not need to signal anything. The Datejust is the watch of someone who bought a Rolex once, picked the most reasonable one, and never thought about it again. Compare it to Ron Perlman's Nino, who wears a Breitling for Bentley Chronograph in the same film, on a 48mm wrist. The two watches show what kind of partners Bernie and Nino are: one quiet, one loud, both dangerous, but only one of them is going to be in business in five years.