Cheesy special effects, predictable scripting and dreadful acting stop this racing saga dead in its tracks.

Rating: 4/10 (24 December 2002)

Driven begins with the following caption (if I remember correctly): "900 million fans. 250 miles per hour. 20 races. 1 championship." Sounds like the start of an exciting movie, doesn't it? Unfortunately, this racing saga remains stuck in low gear for its entire duration.
My first objection to this movie is that its opening race is presented with such music video-style editing and breathless narration that for me it's obnoxious, not thrilling: it never really explains what's happening, or why I should care; and all the movie's racing sequences are presented in the same tiresome hyper-kinetic fashion.
I also hated the cheesy special effects, which in my opinion are ludicrous and unconvincing computer-generated f/x even compared to the shoddy f/x of other recent movies. The sight of one race-car spinning in mid-air (in slow motion, of course) while the other cars zoom beneath it like flashes of light is simply stupid and weird to the point of distraction: it contributes nothing to the so-called story, and serves as nothing more than a completely redundant and gratuitous imitation of The Matrix's famously stylish "bullet-time" sequence. I felt embarrassed watching this movie, with its obviously computer-generated quarters, manhole covers and even individual raindrops, none of which serve any useful purpose: I honestly believe the movie would have been better with no computer-generated images whatsoever; certainly I would have hated it less.
Some of the acting scenes are even worse than the racing segments! The first Big Emotional Moment comes from Estella Warren, whose "performance" is awful; no, make that AWFUL! She deservedly won a Razzie Award for her atrocious attempt to become another model-cum-thespian. Hollywood movies frequently showcase pretty girls with little talent, but she's bad even compared to others of her type: she makes Jennifer Love Hewitt look like Meryl Streep.
Stallone's performance is, in my opinion, the least objectionable in the entire movie: his pleasant, easygoing screen presence easily carries him through most of his scenes, and he seems subtle and relaxed compared to some of the other actors. Burt Reynolds gives his usual Burt Reynolds performance, though his unflattering facelift (caused by an unsuccessful visit to Cher's plastic surgeon, perhaps) attracted my notice more than his acting. His big emotional scene with Sly is thus rendered laughable: the only image more ridiculous than Reynolds's face is watching him try to act with it.
Not much plot to reveal, certainly not much worth mentioning: Stallone's character, a fallen legend among race-car drivers, is called in to help promising young driver Jimmy Bly, played by Kip Pardue, whose name reminds me of meaty chicken. Pardue's performance is so uneven that it's difficult to evaluate: at times he seems sensitive and appealing, at other times he seems as argumentative and unsympathetic as the other characters. He's supposed to be the lead, and yet he doesn't have enough charisma or personality to compete as an actor with Stallone or the others. Til Schweiger, by comparison, as Jimmy Bly's rival Beau Brandenburg, has a powerful screen presence, and consequently I found him somewhat appealing despite the fact that he plays a stereotypically cold-blooded German.
Robert Sean Leonard is intolerably obnoxious and headache-inducing as Jimmy Bly's agent (and brother!): I understand that his character is supposed to be annoying, but a better actor would have been able to project an irritating character without becoming irritating himself. Gina Gershon is the only other member of the cast worth mentioning, because her ugly, sneering mouth constantly distracted me during her scenes: some people believe she's attractive despite that mouth, but not me. Some people also believe she's a good actress, but not me.
Renny Harlin has directed at least two movies that I genuinely like, Cliffhanger and Deep Blue Sea; neither movie is very good, exactly, but both at least are energetic and have a sense of fun. The chief failure of Driven is that very few of its scenes, if any, have any energy or real sense of fun. It feels too clumsy to be much fun, as it continually shifts from dizzying (and ultimately numbing) racing sequences to static scenes in which uninteresting characters exchange dialogue that is too trite to be memorable. Driven could have succeeded in several ways (as a true documentary-style movie, or as an old-fashioned action movie using real cars and stunt people instead of laughable f/x), but in its present form it's too much of a hybrid to succeed as either an action movie or a drama.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD!
The final race is so predictable that there's no excuse for it dragging out as long as it does. Did Harlin think he was building suspense? Did anyone who watched this movie from the beginning seriously doubt that Jimmy Bly would win the final race? Or that Reynolds would hurry up to Stallone after the race and say "You could have won that race!", and that Stallone would say "I did win it!" because he proved something to himself? (Everybody say "Aww.") Or that all the characters would be cheering the winners, their petty problems reconciled? Or that the three winners would spray each other with champagne while a generic feel-good song plays on the soundtrack? Or that the movie would end with a freeze-frame of the winners smiling in triumph? Was anyone seriously surprised by any of this?
Had the filmmakers edited out most of Estella Warren's atrocious performance, and made the car crashes realistic and exciting rather than laughable and unconvincing, I might have given this movie my "okay" rating of 5; but they did not, so I give it my "below average" rating of 4. To be fair, Driven is not terrible, but most of it is made unwatchable by the aforementioned weaknesses. I felt compelled to write this comment not because my opinion differs from all the other negative reviews, but because I squandered almost two hours of my life watching this mindless, smug, unfocused and (worst of all) pointless and forgettable movie.
Rating: 4