Driven (2001) Reviews

• Entertaining and easy to watch, took itself a little too seriously though

  mba2002-01-29

  All i've got to say is that i enjoyed this movie and found it entertaining and an interesting insight into the competition between race drivers and what they go through in a demanding profession. I do wish Estella Warren had more to do in this film, because she is just LUSH! and one of my favourite models. But it seems as though she has just been put in the film for the eye-candy, which is great but she needs to do more because she deserves a better chance to really make it as an actress. But overall it is quite entertaining with the racing scenes and the variety of locations they go to. Maybe it would've been better if it took itself less seriously. A masterpiece it aint, but better than i expected and easy to watch. I say to all the people who are trashing this film, you are entitled to your opinion and so am i. My opinion is that you are a bunch of SNOBS!! Admit it, you are! Rating- 8 out of 10

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• Man, I wanted this movie to be good...

  senninha702002-07-26

  As a big auto racing fan, CART in particular, I awaited this movie since the mid-90's when it was discussed as a Formula One movie. However, Formula One wouldn't allow the access that it did for Grand Prix in 1966, so the director defaulted to the North American CART series. CART allowed unprecedented access to its venues, races, paddock, announcers, drivers, sponsors, etc. But this movie fails in that it is nothing more than an auto racing cliché. As a fan, it's hard to rebuff the blood sport aspect of the sport to those who are not fans. The crashes are incredibly unrealistic, some of the tracks are non-existent and the drivers are paper thin. The scene near the swimming pool with the blonde vixen doing some sort of goofy water aerobics is pathetic. The part where Jimmy Bly steals a car (that happens to be filled with fuel indoors and doesn't need an external starter to run) and drives it through the Chicago streets with Stalone in tow is just ridiculous. And to they get arrested or even prosecuted for this action? No, they just are forced to convey one of the stupidest dialogues in the history of racing movies. The CART series is in serious trouble in real life. A movie about the excitement of the series, the strategy, the action and the pageantry of racing could have boosted the series back to national respectability. However, this movie just hinders its descent into oblivion with the Can-Am series. It could have been so much more.

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• Eyes for sale... I no longer want them, they feel soiled now.

  VengefulSquirrel2004-07-15

  Hey, I didn't watch the film deliberately. I live in a house with two batteries and one of them wasn't in the remote and if I ever find the sod I'm justing going to dispose of it in a fire regardless of what the instructions say. You know how in real races they sought through the mangled wreckage in search of the remaining bits of the driver after a crash? That's what it's like trying to find a film amongst the last two hours of my life... except in that this case if I find anything still moving I'm going to hit it with a shovel. I've experienced pain in my life, I've experienced head injuries, and oddly I suspect that those involved in making this film have too. The only difference is I let my pain out in a long girlish shrieks and they decide to bottle it up and then inflict it on others. Here is the plot *SPOILER* Things go in circles. Not the cars, the plot. Well, the cars might have done but there were so many random changes of camera angle that I was too busy having a seizure and staining the carpet with my froth. So basically the plot is goes as follows: Seizure, despair, seizure, disbelief at plot, seizure, why has that man got a very odd shaped head, seizure, someone almost does something of a social nature, seizure, the first hour of the movie turns out to have no relevance to the first hour, seizure, cars driving down street in a hilariously homoerotic display of gurning and head wobbling, seizure, begging for death, seizure, uncontrollable laughter at quite possibly the most crack-inspired moment in film history, at which point I was too busy crying to have any further seizures. I should have stopped watching when my hand subconsciously began crawling towards the jumbo bottle of sleeping pills, yet I became strangely fixated by the horror...much like when you see a crazed but very small dog attacking a pensioner. The level of testosterone displayed in this film makes Top Gun look like The Muppets Take Manhattan. Eventually I cringed so much that when they loudly announced they were going to "double-team the field" I slipped a disc. Women are allowed to do two things in the movie, stand there, and bend over. On a side note, neither of the two main ones seem able to do this well for the five seconds of screen time they have before it gets back to the seizures and I suddenly realize I have a shotgun barrel in my mouth and my toe's heading for the trigger. I'd like to comment more on the plot but after a while I started drawing a more interesting film on my eyeballs with a pencil. Mine had Godzilla ripping Stallone in half, their film had some car doing something. Mine is better. Just trust me.

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• Driven.......to distraction

  Rob_Taylor2004-07-16

  It's hard to know where to begin to review this movie. At first glance it's harmless enough, but there was a lot about it that annoyed me. So rather than waste a lot of time analysing the merits (or lack thereof) of this film I'll be flippant with the following comments: Things this movie taught me: 1. Young race car drivers are, apparently, so immature as to think that a couple of drinks with a pretty girl means that she wants to have their babies and are willing to get into fisticuffs to protect their (entirely imagined) relationship. 2. If a driver is injured he doesn't need to see a trained physician to certify him race fit. All he needs to do is hop up and down on a busted ankle for the gratification of his sado-masochistic, wheelchair-bound boss. 3. If you're a naughty race-car driver you can drive your 200mph, non-street legal Indycar on public highways and the only consequence of this life-endangering stunt will be a small fine. 4. It is also perfectly acceptable to spin your race car 180 degrees and drive the wrong way around the race track, endangering other drivers, so long as you're doing it to save a friend from a horrible (but well deserved) flaming death. 5. Wives, girlfriends and brothers of race drivers (or just about anyone who knows them) can not only stand in the team control booth in a self-important manner, but also give orders to the drivers as if they were the team boss. 6. Tyres that come off cars in accidents can fly hundreds of feet into the air, go over the safety fence, and fall amongst the crowd. But don't worry. So long as you aren't hit when it lands you are safe. Rubber tyres apparently don't bounce at all when hitting concrete bleachers. All in all then, this movie is less than impressive. On a scale of 1 to rancid this film gets a solid 4 and a half lard blocks (most of the lard was on Burt Reynolds - will he never give up?) Not worth the effort.

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• Not necessarily an arthouse masterpiece, yet nowhere as bad as its rep.

  moonlightreflections2001-05-16

  It's been often mentioned by other reviewers that the art of the cornball must have been engineered by Sylvester Stallone; it's just as often forgotten that true tripe goes unwatched merely because it does not go into wide, national release. So guess which movies always receive the worse rep? Having watched the trailer and anticipated this movie for a while, I knew exactly what to expect beforehand: your typical good guy vs. bad guy, fight for glory, 'win-all-lose-all final confrontation' fare. Surprisingly, I encountered something that attempted to be a little more profound, and while it doesn't exactly hint at the meaning of existence, it explores a facet of human relationships which not many other movies in this genre have touched. The movie's tagline, "Welcome to the human race," does a nice job of encompassing all that this film discusses. The peculiar thing about the entire setup is that, unlike all other movies in this genre, there are no defined lines. There is no good guy, no bad guy; simply a race for perfection that alludes to the way that most of us wish to live, though the path that we take is an altogether different matter. It's difficult to pick up on, but if enough attention is paid, the idiosyncrasies of each of the characters in this movie speak far more than what their dialogue brings to the table. Where the film falters, and causes most of the audience to misperceive its message, is in its presentation. It's frenetic, loud, and highly distracting; and yet, tremendously appealing to this particular viewer. The speed with which the director cuts between shots, pans, zooms, spins, spirals, etc., go hand in hand with the feel of the sport in general, and is indeed very creative -- but it is hard to keep up with what's going on. How are we supposed to know what each character is feeling when the scene cuts away before the dialogue is even finished? How are we supposed to be even able to recognize what's happening on the screen when we're not given more than a two-second break between blaringly obtrusive rock songs? Once again, the movie alludes to the sport itself with the commercialization of its soundtrack. And while highly kinetic, and emotionally involving at times (the opening scene with the media was brilliantly executed for a Jimmy Bly point of view), it's just hard to...keep track of everything. But in the end, the main reason anybody is going to watch this movie for is the racing, particularly the accidents that take place at excesses of 200 miles per hour. And it delivers pretty admirably, truth be told. There are a lot of interesting camera positions and perspectives to make you feel a part of the race, and the special effects could be considered top-notch. Kudos to whoever decided to not give the CG cars and items the cheap, laughter-inducing fluidity of movement that's to be found in just about any other movie with computer graphics (though there were a few scenes with this effect). It's not necessarily realistic, and a little simplistic on the artistic scale, but it reaches a satisfying level of subtlety--and at times, it's fascinating to see some of the things that can be done. The film is not without its clichés, it sometimes forgets about or fails to discuss a few of its plot points, and the women appear to be portrayed a little 2-dimensionally. But when the crew is watching the race or practice runs from the movie's dramatic camera angles on their small overhead monitor, you simply don't care. The movie takes itself seriously, but it's also intended to be fun; it's merely up to the viewer to interpret how they wish to take it. The first time, it may be a little difficult to swallow, but with subsequent bites, you begin to grow accustomed and appreciate its distinct flavor. Here's hoping that Stallone sticks to it for a while longer. I'm hungry for more. 8/10

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