A Wildly Uneven Film

Rating: 6/10 (1 May 2001)

"Driven" suffers from an unpolished script and witless direction, but despite the flaws, it's still decent. Not good, not great, but decent. No amount of rewrites would ever make this a great film, but it comes close at times to being good. In a way, it's more frustrating to see a film like this than a truly awful one, because there's so much promise for a movie like "Driven" . . . but in the end, it falls well short of that promise.
The story, written by Sylvester Stallone, is wildly uneven. Good at times, awful at others, it plays out like a rough draft, still needing a little -- okay, a lot -- of polish. Jimmy Bly (Kip Pardue) is a young race car driver with a lot of talent and a lot of uncertainties -- he's finding it difficult to deal with the pressures of being on top. To help Jimmy deal with the pressure, his boss, Carl Henry (Burt Reynolds), enlists the help of retired racer Joe Tanto (Sylvester Stallone), to be a mentor and advisor to Jimmy. Jimmy's ups and downs through the racing season are chronicled -- his relationships with Tanto, with his chief rival Beau Brandenburg (Til Schweiger), and with his weaselly brother (and agent) Demille (Robert Sean Leonard).
There's certain moments of the story that border on being genuinely touching and brilliant -- Tanto's relationship with Brandenberg, for example, which could've easily degenerated into an overly cliched Rocky/Ivan Drago rivalry, is much more complex and interesting than expected. Stallone does a good job of either avoiding the obvious cliches or putting a new spin on them, making for a neat story that comes across fresh, and not just a re-tread of "Rocky". Other moments, though, defy common sense and hurt the film. For example, the fact that Bly and Brandenburg constantly finished 1-2 in every single race is odd enough, but when Carl Henry starts implying that he'd fire Bly . . . come on! The guy at least finishes second in every race! Who can you get who'll be better? It becomes commonplace in "Driven" to see characters act completely irrationally or against everything they've said in previous scenes to add conflict to a scene, and the lack of logic becomes tiresome and stupid. Add into this car races that come across more as Playstation 2 fantasies instead of, well, real, and "Driven" lurches unsteadily between magic and moronic in the space of seconds.
Stallone's pretty good as Tanto -- he keeps faithful to his role as a mentor, staying a supporting character and wisely avoiding the chance to make himself the hero once more. Burt Reynolds does well with the part of Carl Henry, not chewing the scenery (much). The part's poorly written, but Reynolds makes the most of it. The highlight of "Driven" is Til Schweiger as Brandenburg, who transforms what could've been a stock guy-you-want-to-hate part into somebody who demands grudging respect. With any luck, Mr. Schweiger will be in many more mainstream films sometime soon. Unfortunately, he also does such a good job that he completely overshadows Kip Pardue as Jimmy Bly, who's supposed to be nervous and unsure of himself. . . but instead, he just comes across as a whiner. Considering that Bly's also supposed to be the hero of "Driven", the weak performance hurts the film. (Special mention: Gina Gershon as Tanto's bitchy ex-wife Cathy. Tiny part, but man, is she awesome.)
And then, there's the direction. A federal law should be passed barring Renny Harlin from ever directing another motion picture ever again. With obscenely fast camera cuts, a blaring, overly loud soundtrack, and scene set-ups that simply defy all logic, Mr. Harlin has taken the concept of pacing a story and cheerfully bludgeoned it to death. There's little time to sit back and enjoy some of the quieter scenes in "Driven", and sadly, it's these little moments that actually make the film enjoyable. Everything is presented at such an urgent, frenetic pace; it's easy to stop caring about the scenes that actually need to be urgent. "Driven" would've benefited greatly from the presence of a different director -- it's that bad.
With the benefit of another rewrite (and another scriptwriter), and especially another director -- one with a shred of talent -- "Driven" could've been good. Instead, the high points and low points average out to a very, very mediocre film. It's a shame. Grade: C+