Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		2.0
Audio		2.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		1.5

Driven to Kill Blu-ray Movie Review

Driven to sleep.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman June 27, 2009

Those who did this to you will cry tears of blood, this I promise you.

The bad guys may not be the only ones crying at the end of this one. Driven to Kill marks yet another direct-to-video Action dud from former star Steven Seagal. This time, his daughter has been kidnapped, and Seagal wants her back. No wait, she's been assaulted, and Seagal wants revenge. Since the front and the back of the box offer conflicting information as to what exactly is going on in Driven to Kill (and who can blame even the studio for not completely figuring out the plot to this mess), and the front even manages to fail in its depiction of the setting (it's New York/New Jersey, not . . . Moscow? St. Petersburg?), only a daring foray into the seedy underbelly of bad Russian accents, accordion polka music, and lots of gunfire will set the record straight.

He's driven, he's killin'.

Former Russian mafia bad guy Ruslan (Steven Seagal, Half Past Dead) has been living in near seclusion in Los Angeles, penning a collection of crime novels and shunning the life of crime that once defined his very existence. Ruslan returns to New Jersey on "personal business" to attend his daughter's wedding, but soon after his arrival, his ex-wife is murdered and his daughter beaten and left for dead. Teaming up with his soon-to-be son-in-law, Stephan (Dmitry Chepovetsky), Ruslan sets out to right the wrongs of the wedding party gone terribly awry. After killing a bunch of nobodies for their arsenal of automatic weapons, Ruslan goes to work, hunting down his former boss and Stephan's father, Mikhail (Igor Jijikine). Also involved, perhaps, is his ex-wife's husband, Terry (Robert Wisden). No matter who stands in his way, Ruslan will stop at nothing to protect what remains of his family and deliver a punishing blow to the crime organization behind their suffering.

Conflicting information on the box and a story that should be simple enough but sometimes seems to try and be too complex for its own good, Driven to Kill often seems as confusing as a graduate-level astrophysics lesson would to a first grader. With a meandering plot, characters with uncertain motives, and a plethora of nobody fodder for Seagal to pump full of lead gives Driven to Kill the feel of a bad 8-bit video game where the hero simply runs from one room to the next while dispatching an army of nobodies that all think, move, and shoot the same way. Eventually, the level ends and a new one with only a different background begins, leading up to a confrontation with a bad guy at the end to win the day. Packed with bad phony accents that sometimes sound more like gibberish than English, random lines delivered in Russian with no subtitles, and characters that don't differentiate themselves one from another, it's no wonder that Driven to Kill doesn't work. Some of the details are fleshed out near the end, but the plot is presented so awkwardly and the dialogue delivered so poorly that Driven to Kill requires two viewings to get it all straight, and for what is otherwise a badly-scripted, terribly acted, oddly scored, and blandly directed straight-to-Blu-ray Action turkey, well, that dog just won't hunt.

Still, Driven to Kill can be mildly entertaining in a morbid sort of way. It's not quite as bad as the worst bottom-scraping dreck of all time, but as a totally mindless time killer, it could have been a little worse. Seagal still has a few moves left in him, or at least through the magic of movie trickery he appears to still have them; several hand-to-hand combat scenes play as somewhat entertaining in context. The rest of the action barely holds the movie together, shootout after shootout a repetitive blur that does nothing at all that could be considered even remotely novel, though the end of the movie does offer a gory and exciting special effect that almost makes the movie tolerable. Like the action sequences, the characters are as flat and unconvincing as any ever to grace the screen. Not only are their motives and identities confused, but there is not a shred of emotional depth to any of them. Ruslan's ex-wife is dead? OK. His daughter beat up? Ho-hum. Her fiancé struggling with a death that is on his hands? Who cares? None of it matters except in the most basic of contexts that allows for the movie to plod along through its predictable avalanche of shootouts. Last but not least, Driven to Kill features jerky, handheld direction and an odd accordion-heavy, polka-inspired score. Check please.

Driven to Kill Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Driven to Kill pulls up on Blu-ray with a none-too-impressive 1080p, 1.85:1-framed transfer. The image sports a terribly heavy layer of grain that is rendered quite well throughout, adding to the experience a gritty, grimy feel and a perfectly fine film-like texture. Unfortunately, the rest of the image disappoints considerably. There's plenty of soft imagery here, and not only in unimportant background objects. Full-frame close-ups of character often reveal soft lines and undefined, fuzzy details that often give the Blu-ray transfer the look of a mediocre DVD. The film also revels in a dark color palette, where blacks and browns dominate a good portion of the screen at most any given time. The transfer also features murky blacks and wavering flesh tones. The film seems to be aiming to capture the look and feel of a gritty 1970s crime drama, but can't pull it off. As it is, Driven to Kill generally takes on the appearance of a flat-out ugly straight-to-video transfer.

Driven to Kill Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Driven to Kill features a pedestrian DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless soundtrack that, try as it may, can't outclass even the meager video presentation. Dialogue is never presented all that clearly; much of it sounds muffled and incoherent, and not only because of the thick, phony accents. Gunshots ring out with a whimper rather than a bang, for example a scene in chapter seven featuring Ruslan test-firing a .38 revolver in a basement. It sounds like more like a cap gun than a deadly weapon. Later in the film, a random bad guy fires a heavy machine gun in a hospital, and while loud, it sounds more like a some outer space-themed toy blaster than it does an automatic weapon. A few scenes deliver a decent sense of realism; a club scene in chapter twelve throws some information to the subwoofer with decent, but not at all memorable, low-end beats. The rear channels remain mostly silent, and there is practically no atmosphere to be found. Driven to Kill delivers a cold, sometimes unintelligible, and always unremarkable sonic presentation.

Driven to Kill Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Driven to Kill shows no drive here; no supplements are included.

Driven to Kill Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

For the perfect example of an action movie gone terribly awry, look no further than Driven to Kill. Thankfully, it's not so bad that it's completely unwatchable. Quite the opposite, in fact. Purely for the comic value that results from minimal production values, terrible acting, bland sets, headache-inducing direction, and a goofy score, Driven to Kill passes as ten-cent entertainment that's good for a few laughs, some repetitive gunplay, and a gruesome finale that almost makes it worth a watch. 20th Century Fox's direct-to-Blu-ray feature doesn't impress from a technical perspective, either. Featuring a terribly uninteresting 1080p image, a lackluster lossless soundtrack, and nothing but crickets where the supplements should be, Driven to Kill might be worth a rental for Seagal fans or anyone looking for a mindless action movie.