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It's probably no coincidence that Driven is only one letter away from being Drivel. The film, made by long-time critical whipping boys Renny Harlin (director) and Sylvester Stallone (star/screenwriter), features a 20-race Formula One season that pits the defending champion (an unlikeable German) against the rookie (a dreamy Calvin Klein model). When it's showing a race, Driven is merely adequate; when it's not, it's downright awful.
Admittedly, I know nothing about racing, other than the fact it's as exciting as watching paint dry, and I furrow my brow at the fans who insist it's a sport. "You've got to be in great shape to race a car," they say. Right. I've seen plenty of fat people drive fast. As far as I can tell (and Driven didn't change my opinion at all), you need only a big bladder and the ability to sit still for a really long time. The only thing those hillbillies in the stands (and the theatre audience, for that matter) want to see is a crash, and then they're horrified when somebody zooms off to that Big Oval in the Sky. Here are a few things I did learn from the film:
- When there's an accident on the track, the Kyrgyzstan flag is triumphantly waved to cheer up the spectators.
- Drivers pass their girls around like joints. (Have you seen Jeff Gordon's wife? Where do I sign up for this racing thing?)
- If you hum, you'll drive faster (try it at home, kids!).
- The cars are really controlled by laptop computers manned by nerdy men who are neatly tucked away so nobody sees them.
Driven focuses on an F1 racing team managed by the wheelchair-bound Carl Henry (Burt Reynolds, The Crew). He has two drivers in his stable - Memo Moreno (Cristián de la Fuente, Family Law) and rookie Jimmy Blye (Kip Pardue, Remember the Titans). When Blye begins to challenge the defending F1 champion, Beau Brandenburg (Til Schweiger), he jettisons Memo and makes a call to a washed-up ex-racer named Joe Tanto (Stallone, Get Carter) to help steer his promising rookie in the right direction.
Thrown into the mix are three women who do incredibly little to add anything to the weak story. Gina Gershon (The Insider) is married to Memo but is also Tanto's ex-wife. Synchronized-swimmer-turned-Sports-Illustrated-swimsuit-model Estella Warren (who is dating Pardue in real life) plays Brandenburg's squeeze, but she leaves him for Blye. In the Company of Men's Stacy Edwards clocks in a throwaway role as a reporter assigned to cover the F1 season and all of the chest-thumping attendant thereto - you know, kind of the Jane Goodall of car-driving chimps. Since you can practically see testosterone dripping off the screen here, it's a big surprise that there isn't one sex scene. Nobody even kisses, which is just plain weird, especially since you know Stallone's character will nail Edwards' five seconds before they even meet (it just HAS to be on the cutting-room floor, abandoned for the PG-13 rating).
Isn't it about time we go ahead and subtitle Stallone? I've heard more intelligible things spewing out of the homeless guy at the bus stop who's always going on about flying hams. Sly's psychic mother makes more sense at this point. His script - the first he's penned on his own since the celebrated Rocky V - goes out of its way to show that each character is damaged in some way or another, but not in a way to make viewers care. Driven includes several laughably bad motivational speeches and the lamest foreshadowing in years. Oh my God - I can't believe it's going to come down to the last race of the season!
Harlin (Deep Blue Sea) does well with the racing scenes (especially the crashes), but everything else is a poorly paced mess. The music (from BT) is annoying and the non-stop product placement is way too convenient to ignore. Driven can't even find anything to do with the beautiful but clearly untalented Warren ("Well, what CAN you do, sweetie?" "I used to be a synchronized swimmer." "Bingo, then that's what you'll do."). When Gina Gershon lends an air of credibility to your film, you're in big, big trouble.
1:45 - PG-13 for language and some intense crash sequences
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