Fun Movie; Great DVD

Rating: 9/10 (19 September 2001)

I am very surprised by how poorly this film has been received by the movie-going public. Both professional film critics from around the country as well as people from the general public are often tearing this film apart on every level - characters are underdeveloped, the editing is too choppy, the story is too simple, etc. I think that people are being overly harsh, by a lot.
DRIVEN is a fun, highly entertaining film that I would recommend to most people. I must admit, however, that I have a soft spot for both Renny Harlin and Sly Stallone. Regarding Renny, I am a fan of Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, and Deep Blue Sea (though I was not as impressed with Cutthroat Island and The Long Kiss Goodnight). I really like his style of film-making and the way he shoots his action sequences. I realize that his films are not worthy of Academy Awards, but they do succeed in what they set out to do. Regarding Sly, I grew up on the Rocky and Rambo films and have been a fan of his for many years. I see all of his movies in the theater, and I've recently been disappointed by some of his choices. Get Carter was fine, but not as good as I had hoped it would be. Thus, when DRIVEN was released I had high hopes for it and really wanted it to be good. As it turns out, I was quite pleased.
Rather than discuss the plot of the film, which can be found in many reviews all over the Web, I thought I should mention The DRIVEN DVD that I just purchased. The DVD is full of extras, all of which are very interesting. Renny's running commentary is engaging, and the behind the scenes featurettes are also quite informative. What is most interesting is the 50 minutes of deleted scenes that are accompanied by a Stallone commentary. Here we get to watch scenes that were cut from the film and hear from Stallone what the original intent of the scenes were. It turns out that the original cut of the film was 4 and a half hours long. Clearly, Sly wrote a script that was filled with character development, but most of those scenes were cut in order to speed up the pacing of the film. This is too bad, because I feel that the inclusion of some of these scenes would have made the film stronger. Also, the DVD looks and sounds amazing. The picture is sharp and the Dolby Digital sound is incredible.
If you are curious about this movie, I think that it is worth a rental, at least. It may not be for everybody, but I think that it's much more fun that most of the movies that came out this summer.