Driven (DVD) > Reviews > Va Va Vroom

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Indifferent to it
Story	Good
Characters / Performances	Satisfactory
Special Effects	Good
Soundtrack	Average

Advantages:	good action, great racing scenes
Disadvantages:	some dodgy acting, a few script howlers

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Driven was the film that briefly stopped the box office slump of Sly Stallone in the USA. Alright it was only for a week and the film just scraped over $30 million eventually but hey it's a start.

The film has got mixed reviews everywhere, none saying it's fantastic, some saying it's entertaining and some saying it's just plain awful. Well you have to bear in mind that some reviewers have a standard reply to anything featuring Sly Stallone. Even his re-make of Get Carter is nowhere near as bad as you may have heard. I like Stallone films for what they are and that's the mindset I had going into this film. I also like Renny Harlin film's for what they are - mindless entertainment.

Driven takes place in the world of CART racing which bares some similarities to Formula One with a large popularity over the world. Team owner Carl Henry (Burt Reynolds) has a young rookie diver Jimmy Bly (Kip Pardue) who is fast catching up to the champion Beau Brandenberg (Til Schweiger) but is losing some composure with all the pressure. Henry brings in ex-driver Joe Tanto (Stallone) to help Jimmy get some control on the track and off it.

Tanto has some demons from his past failures in his racing life to contend with. His ex-wife went off and married another driver who was a friend and he never really achieved what he was capable of in the sport. Meanwhile Jimmy is getting pressure from his manager brother who's interested in the money and fame while he attracted to his rival's girlfriend.

The film charts the progress of these characters through the races in the lead up to the championship finale with of course action, cars and speed along the way.

Stallone wrote the script to this film and it's not an amazing effort but does it's job. There are a few howlers of dialogue throughout but they seem to get away with it. I sometimes think that a script can be raised above it weaknesses by performance and direction and these elements are not 100%.

The acting is on an average level. Stallone is actually not bad, sure he mumbles his way through some of the dialogue but we wouldn't have it any other way. Burt Reynolds finds himslef confined to a wheelchair and doesn't have much to do. He's a bit over the top as well and his pencil bar style facial hair doesn't help. Kip Pardue is a new kid on the block; he's good looking but a bit vacant. He's not bad in the role but perhaps doesn't have the full experience of intuition to lift the material. Estella Warren plays the love interest who's really there to look good and not really do much.

Renny Harlin is a director who isn't known for amazing work with characters. His forte is action and blowing stuff up with a lot of explosives. This he does very well and you'd think that the world of motor racing wouldn't give him much opportunity to do this. But somehow he does on several occasions. There is one moment that is so un-realistic and over the tip that you half expect an action replay. It probably wouldn't happen in the real world but this after all is a movie. Harlin stages some of the more restrained acting scenes from a back seat. They are passable but he can't disguise the bad dialogue and some of his camera moves are a bit disorientating. He also uses some techniques that are a bit flashy when more traditional methods would have worked best. But he does get inside the cars with some great work on the racing scenes that capture the speed and danger of the driver’s cars.

There are also a lot of songs played throughout and this is more a look at the big spectacle of racing rather than a character piece. If you like a lot of high paced action, good looking girls and something that won't tax your brain then you could certainly do a lot worse.

Yes there are a lot of things wrong with the film and it's no classic but it does exactly what it says on the tin. Certainly it can't be Stallone's fault as the dvd shows that a lot of the character plot he wrote was cut out in favour of the racing.

Give it a look but you'll have to do it before Friday I'd imagine as it's died at the UK box office where the sport isn't well known and will probably be out of theatres before the weekend.