Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.0

Driven Blu-ray Movie Review

Driven to Tears

Reviewed by Michael Reuben June 10, 2013

After their first successful pairing in 1993's Cliffhanger, star Sylvester Stallone and director Renny Harlin reteamed for Driven, which was originally planned to be set in the world of Formula 1 racing. Stallone had been trying for years to obtain authorization for a bio-pic of Brazilian Formula 1 racing legend Ayrton Senna, whose story was ultimately told in his own words in the first-rate documentary Senna. By the time Stallone and Harlin combined their efforts, they had discovered that Formula 1 teams were too secretive to allow a film production the kind of access that Harlin wanted. The film's milieu was switched to the parallel world of what is now known as "Champ Car" racing but was then called "CART".

Stallone took an existing screen story and transformed it into a magnum opus of a screenplay, creating a lead role for himself and an extended web of relationships around him. After Harlin shot it all, the rough cut ran four and a half hours. Harlin, who had only just begun to rehabilitate his reputation after the debacle of Cutthroat Island, wasn't about to let Stallone's vision stand in his way. In the editing room, he reshaped the film into what he thought would play best, and that meant shifting Stallone's character to the sidelines and focusing on the rivalry between two young drivers, neither of them played by a familiar face, and their romantic triangle with a newcomer, Estella Warren, who was promising but hardly a major discovery. As he has so often done, Harlin counted on his shots, his editors and special effects to carry the day.

The result? A box office bomb, even in the overseas market where Stallone's films generally did well; lousy reviews, including one from auto enthusiast Jay Leno, guest hosting on Ebert and Roeper at the Movies, who pronounced Driven the worst car film ever made; seven Razzie nominations; and worst of all, rejection in the motorsport media, which immediately rechristened the film "Drivel". Stallone eventually told reporters that he wished he hadn't made the film.

In Harlin's streamlined edit, Driven revolves around the grudge match between two drivers, an American newcomer, Jimmy Bly (played by a relative newcomer, Kip Pardue), and a German champion, Beau Brandenburg (German actor Til Schweiger, speaking passable English three years after his non-speaking American debut in The Replacement Killers). Jimmy has had a promising season so far, but his team owner, Carl Henry (Burt Reynolds), doubts his commitment. Meanwhile, Brandenburg is feeling sufficient pressure from Jimmy's success to break off his engagement with Sophia (Warren), because he wants no distractions from racing. Sophia takes it badly, and Brandenburg shortly regrets his decision, especially when Sophia and Jimmy strike up a friendship (which Jimmy would like to make something more), and the two become a regular fixture on the racing scene.

In an effort to "season" Jimmy, Carl Henry retrieves a washed-up former driver, Joe Tanto (Stallone), from retirement and adds him to the team. Unfortunately for Joe, he mistakes Carl's move as a second chance, especially since Jimmy's manager, his older brother, Demille (Robert Sean Leonard), won't let Joe or anyone else even approach the family cash cow, let alone dispense advice. Joe is also aware that Carl callously bumped Jimmy's current teammate, Memo Moreno (Cristián de la Fuente), to create a spot on the team for Joe. Adding to the tension is the fact that Memo is now married to Joe's former wife, a dagger-tongued vamp named Cathy (Gina Gershon), who would love nothing better than to see her ex-husband crash and burn. Joe's eye, however, quickly lights on someone new: a sports journalist named Lucretia Clan, or "Luc" to her friends (Stacey Edwards).

As Harlin chaperones this traveling soap opera around the racing circuit from Toronto to Japan, Chicago, Germany and finally Detroit, it quickly becomes clear that he's far less interested in the characters and their relationships than in the cars, their speed, their maneuvers and, wherever possible, their crashes. I'm not enough of a racing enthusiast to judge the result, but the film's poor reception by the community it was supposed to be celebrating says a lot.

The one scene I can evaluate is the over-the-top joyride through the streets of Chicago (actually Toronto), when Jimmy steals a racing car from a prototype reception and zooms off in a snit after being rejected by Sophia. Joe gives chase, and the two of them proceed to break every traffic law on the books. It's a comical sequence, but the next day both drivers are back on the circuit with the voiceover ESPN announcers dismissing the incident with talk of a $25,000 fine. Are you kidding? From what we see in the film, the property damage alone far exceeds that amount, and the personal injury claims would be arriving for months. If Harlin was striving for realism, he should have stayed on the track. (Stallone's original script made a more credible effort to address the consequences of Jimmy's joyride, as the deleted scenes reveal.)

Harlin's real sin, though, is that by the end of the film—and I'm not giving much away here—little has changed. One character has been badly injured, but it's a development that is telegraphed early on. Another may have a new love interest. (Here, too, you have to consult the deleted scenes to know for sure.) But the main players are in roughly the same situations in which we first found them, except that now they maybe know themselves a little better. Maybe. If that's all the character development the film can accomplish, Harlin might as well have removed a few extraneous players, just as he digitally removed Stallone from a dramatic rescue sequence in the latter half of Driven, when he decided that Joe Tanto shouldn't take part in the scene.

The appropriate time to remove characters or shift their position in a story is in pre-production, before a single frame is shot. Then again, having partnered with Stallone to star and write the script, Harlin could hardly ask his headliner to effectively write himself out of the spotlight; so he waited until post-production. The result was a film that was promoted as a Stallone vehicle but actually rested on the shoulders of characters who had been written, cast and directed as supporting players—and couldn't carry the weight.

Driven Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Whatever issues one might have with Driven as a film, there shouldn't be any complaints about Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray's reproduction of cinematographer Mauro Fiore's (Avatar) colorful imagery. Director Harlin wanted to capture the excitement and pageantry of the sport, and wherever possible he took his cast and crew to actual racing events to film scenes with real drivers, crew and crowds in the background. For the race car scenes themselves, the effects team sorted through hours of footage to find material that they could adapt digitally to their needs by adding cars, recoloring existing cars and otherwise remaking the scene to conform to the story points.

The result is an image that is consistently sharp, detailed and colorful, with primaries dominating the scene, especially reds and blues. Blacks are deep and solid for indoor and night scenes, and there is no indication that the sharpness has been engineered through artificial means. The grain is fine with a natural-looking pattern and no apparent video noise. Indeed, the clarity of the image sometimes works against the film, because certain CG effects, which already looked questionable at the time of the film's release (e.g., the driver POV shots) now look truly dated.

Warner has appropriately given the film a BD-50 and a healthy average bitrate of 28.97 Mbps, which the plethora of action demands.

Driven Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

I have read that, for people who know engines, the sounds used for the CART racing machines in Driven are frequently wrong. Since I do not know engines, I can simply report that the lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 track is immersive and powerful, with wide dynamic range and deep bass extension. As much as the various camera tricks invented for the film, the sound mix is intended to give the viewer the sensation of sitting in the driver's seat and, on occasion, of being caught up in a collision. Crowd noise, sounds of pit crews at work and general hubbub are all part of the mix. In quieter scenes away from the manic activity of the racetrack, the mix provides a general sense of ambiance and atmosphere. The joyride through downtown Chicago has multiple sound effects as the whizzing race cars wreak havoc on the urban environment.

In his commentary, Harlin takes great pride in his extensive musical selections, which include songs by LeAnn Rimes, Fatboy Slim, Grand Theft Auto and the Ohio Players, among others. What little additional music was needed is credited to BT, who that same year also scored the original The Fast and the Furious.

Driven Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The extras have been ported over from Warner's 2001 DVD of Driven.

• Commentary with Director Renny Harlin: Harlin's commentary is informative. He relates the genesis of the project, describes Stallone's screenplay and frankly discusses his decision to remake the film in the editing room, what he chose to cut and why. He also explains his casting decisions. He describes in detail the logistics and technical demands of photographing the races from various angles, and he points out which parts of shots are real and which are CG. As a technical education on the mechanics of moviemaking, the commentary is well worth listening to. What's missing (as it so often is in Harlin's films) is any sense that Harlin understands what makes viewers care about the events portrayed on the screen.



• The Making of Driven (480i; 1.33:1; 15:04): This is an unusually intriguing EPK, because all of the footage was shot on set or on location, before the movie was reshaped in editing. As a result, many of the interviewees have a different idea about the movie they're making than what Driven ultimately became. Burt Reynolds refers to "fifteen" stories being told, while Harlin talks about plots reaching a "climax" at the reception where Jimmy steals the prototype car for a joyride. Of special interest is the original footage from the post-crash rescue that includes Stallone's Joe Tanto character, who was later removed from the scene in post-production.



• Conquering Speed Through Live Action and Visual Effects (480i; 1.33:1; 9:56): Dan Corbett, lead digital compositor, Brian Jennings, visual effects supervisor, and Bill Schaeffer, digital artist, are among those who explain the variety of effects techniques used in the film.



• Deleted Scenes with Optional Commentary (480i; 2.35:1; 51:54): Sylvester Stallone provides his insights into nearly an hour of deletions that would have extended character development and explored relationships. This material (and much more like it) is what Harlin describes cutting out during the editing process to refocus Driven on the competition between the young drivers.
• Intro: Read between the lines of Stallone's intro (especially the part where he says that Driven is a film "about relationships"), and it's obvious why he was unhappy with the theatrical cut.
• Tanto's Daily Routine—then, a Phone Call from a Friend
• Tanto and Carl Discuss Tanto's Future
• Tanto and Cathy Catch Up—then, a Moment with Memo
• Luc Digs Up the Dirt on Tanto
• Carl Pushes Tanto's Limits
• Carl Puts Tanto on the Stand—then, Tanto Tries to Talk Some Sense into Bo
• Tanto and Jimmy Have It Out—then, Carl and the Press in Front of the Police Station
• Carl Tells Tanto of Jimmy's Dismissal
• Cathy Thinks She Wants Joe Back
• Tanto and Luc Enjoy a Quiet Evening on the Detroit Raceway
• Victory Celebration
• The Rebuilt Roadster



• Theatrical Trailer (480i; 2.35:1, enhanced; 1:20): Set to the Methods of Mayhem song "Crash", the trailer looked promising.

Driven Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Harlin made a classic mistake in Driven, and he made it several times. If you're going to tinker with a familiar icon, you'd better have the courage of your convictions and go all the way. If you're going to cast Sylvester Stallone, but not make a typical Stallone film, then really do something different (as James Mangold did in 1997's Cop Land ). Don't put Stallone in the film, then sideline him in favor of younger players who are much less interesting. If you're going to make a Formula 1 racing film, then do it for real, working within whatever limitations the sport imposes. Otherwise, make a different racing film, but above all do not make a Formula 1 film in CART drag. Audiences may cut a filmmaker slack for trying something different, but they won't forgive a bait-and-switch. Driven is diverting and harmless enough, but it's junk. The Blu-ray's technical merits are solid, if you're interested, and the extras provide an intriguing opportunity to consider the film-that-might-have-been. But unless you're intrigued by that kind of speculative pursuit, I can't recommend the film.