Steer Clear

Rating: 4/10 (9 March 2007)

Jimmy (Kip Pardue) is a young racing prodigy who has just been dumped by his girl. And not just dumped, but dumped in public and in favor of a rival racer she has long loved. Distraught, Jimmy needs some time alone. He does what seems like the natural thing: stealing a grand prix car and racing it through the busy nighttime streets of Chicago! Fortunately, his older, wiser racing buddy Joe Tanto (Sly Stallone) is there. He heroically steals his own grand prix racer to track down Jimmy, oblivious to the fact that a pair of automobiles with no headlights traveling 200 miles per hour in a busy city might be a tad dangerous.
This is the precise moment, about halfway through the film, where DRIVEN morphs from a harmless piece of fluff into a near total farce. Of course the distracting (and constant) soundtrack, the Saturday morning dialog and the one performance from Stallone where he actually deserved his Razzie nomination only add to the many problems of this overblown, credibility-starved debacle. The racing scenes are uninspired and far too flashy to be effective. Even the seemingly simple special effects, which had a budget of $72 million to draw from, are hopelessly cartoony. I mean really, how can you have that much money and not create a convincing image of a coin flipping through the air?
Still, I'm willing to cut DRIVEN some slack. It has a certain simple charm that periodically grabs your interest even though you know it's not all that good. The behind-the-races story lines -- Stallone forced to accept that he now races only to help Jimmy, Jimmy dealing with his overly aggressive brother/manager, etc. -- are horribly clichéd and corny, yet mildly amusing. Of course there had to be something good about this movie considering all the talent involved, including screenwriter Stallone and director Renny Harlin.
Though it is not quite an utter turkey, there's basically no reason to take this one for a ride.