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Quote of the day:
"There is a large element of me in every role I do. Actors who say they can dive inside a character are either schizophrenic or lying." -- Bruce Campbell |
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 Review: Driven
By Acheron on April 28, 2001 9:24 AM
Sylvester Stallone is back with Renny Harlin in Driven, a story of the lives of drivers in the CART FedEx Championship.
Stallone stars as Joe Tanto, a former driver who is called out of retirement by his former owner, Carl Henry (Burt Reynolds), to help rising star, Jimmy Bly (Kip Pardue), regain the focus he needs to win a heated championship battle with rival Beau Brandenburg (Til Schwieger). His duty, however, is to "get in the way (i.e. block)" for Jimmy, rather than fight for wins himself.
Off the track, the drivers have personal problems that keeps the competitiveness of the sport going. Sofia Simone (Estella Warren), Brandenburg's fiance, starts to have eyes for Bly, when her relationship with Brandenburg is on the rocks. Stallone becomes involved with Lucretia Clan (Stacy Edwards) a reporter doing an expose on the lives of drivers.
The plot develops more around the lives of the characters, using the racing series as a backdrop.
As you can tell from the blurb above, the basic plot for Driven is pretty generic. But, to say it's downright awful would do it injustice. The racing sequences were like none other captured on the silver screen. Contrary to popular belief, the CG was not abused. The crashes were over the top (as pointed out by current CART drivers that had cameos in the film, as well as by Stallone himself), but they physically could have happened, given the right things happened at the right time.
Obviously, there were inadmissible scenes that kept this from being a much better film. Part of this stems from my knowledge of the sport, part from the utter ridiculousness of the idea.
First, the driving on the city streets bit that you see in the trailer. Unnecessary, but at least they tied it into the story well...it's not just a random scene, as I truly expected. Second, the Nextel car goes over the wall into the pond, and two of the other drivers turn around and get out of the cars mid race to go save the driver. I'm going to call bulls**t on that one. It wouldn't happen. No how, no way.
So, in short: if you want to go see an action movie, and don't go expecting an Oscar worthy story or performances, you'll walk out of there entertained. Guys, there's lots of adrenaline, and lots of hot chicks. The racing sequences are amazing. Much of the footage was taken from actual races filmed all over the world during the CART 2000 season. The cameos of the real drivers were great. So I'm going to say that I was pleasantly surprised with this film.
Conclusion: 8.0/10.0
Great action movie with great racing sequences. This definitely fits into a "guys movie" category (with all of the beautiful women and the gratuitous body shots). It's rated PG-13 for intense racing scenes, mild to moderate sexual content(no sex or nudity), and mild language. Another thing, if you're one that likes to wait until video, don't. This is definitely something you want to see once on a big screen with an excellent sound system.
View Trailer (RealVideo)
Official Site
CART.com
Yet another note. To catch the CART series in live action, tune in to ESPN this Sunday (April 29) at 3:00 EST for the inaugural Firestone Firehawk 600K Presented By Pioneer in Fort Worth, Texas.
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Reader Discussions:
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RE: RE: Review: Driven
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Posted by Acheron (denny@dtheatre.com) on April 28, 2001 7:07 PM
huh. Everyone at my showing walked out with smiles and compliments.
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RE: RE: RE: Review: Driven
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Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on April 28, 2001 7:39 PM
You live in Louisiana!!!!
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RE: RE: RE: Review: Driven
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Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on June 15, 2001 9:02 AM
you are gay!
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RE: RE: RE: Review: Driven
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Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on June 26, 2001 10:09 AM
no u r
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RE: RE: RE: Review: Driven
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Posted by Acheron (denny@dtheatre.com) on April 28, 2001 9:41 PM
yeah, but this is NASCAR country. I hate NASCAR more than I hate answering the phone. To the NASCAR folk, CART is high class, ritzy stuff, so it doesn't carry as much of a following down here as it does in the North and in foreign countries.
The fact of the matter is that newbies came out of that film entertained, and if that got one more person interested in CART, then the movie was a success (IMO).
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Posted by Brad88 (atli2000@excite.com) on April 29, 2001 6:25 AM
I am a NASCAR fan and watch CART off and on. I took my family to the movie yest. and we liked it alot. Especially my 12 y.o. boys. It was what a movie is supposed to be, i.e. entertaining to say the least. With a Stallone film I wasn't expecting "On the Waterfront" and it did deliver. If you want a good movie to take the family to then this one will do that.
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RE: RE: Review: Driven
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Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on April 29, 2001 2:42 PM
dear brad, thank you for being one of the few people who post comments relevant to the issue being discussed.
i'm going with my family tonight.
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RE: RE: RE: Review: Driven
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Posted by Acheron (denny@dtheatre.com) on April 29, 2001 3:36 PM
and I believe you'll be pleasantly entertained. It's a shame the CART race today got postponed. It may be worth another trip to the theatre so I can get my CART fix until the Nazareth, PA race next Sunday.
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RE: RE: RE: Review: Driven
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Posted by The walking dead (robertdowneyjr@jail.com) on April 30, 2001 3:02 PM
What are we discussing? I'm schizophrenic and so am I. Okay, I went back to see the film, again. You know what, it wasn't so bad after all. It's truly amazing what drinking a bottle of tequila and hitting some micro-dot will do to prior to seeing a film. I recommend it to everyone........"TWO THUMBS UP"
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RE: RE: RE: Review: Driven
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Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on April 30, 2001 7:05 PM
Get a life, Butt Burglar.
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RE: RE: RE: Review: Driven
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Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on May 1, 2001 6:17 AM
WHOOOOOOT
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Posted by QwickSilfer (Quicksilver_aka_Mercury@hotmail.com) on May 27, 2001 1:38 PM
Uhm... as girl, I personally love the movie. Maybe it's the guys in the movie (that Jimmy Bly is yummy!) or maybe it's just because I appreciate action-packed-sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat-kick-ass-movies. But who knows? And BTW, the part where they race through the city is one of my favorite parts b/c it ISN'T realistic and like everyday life. And also, it's sorta, whoa, I wanna do that too! I mean, do you jump from one building to the next b/c they show it in the Matrix? Still, it's awesome. And in the Rage, Carrie II, do you really think there are girls out there who have the power of telekenisis? NO! Do you believe Manticore exists (Dark Angel)? But it's cool, and it makes you wonder and think. Just my opinion! Hey, take it from a girl; it's an awesome movie with hot (and not so hot... ;) guys and nice cars, cool scenes and complete wacky scenes"! Sit back and enjoy the show!
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