Driven
Perhaps it was the lateness of the screening,
but New Times' valiant reviewer found
himself damn near dozing off several times during this film, despite the
constant pounding bassline of the wall-to-wall mediocre pop songs on the
soundtrack (some country tunes are allegedly on there too). Remarkably, the
plot was still easy to follow. It seems there are these guys who drive cars in
really fast races: A cocky German (Til Schweiger), a fresh-faced youngster who
looks like Dude, Where's My Car's Ashton Kutcher (Kip Pardue), a Latino
loverboy (Cristian de la Fuente), and some old fella named Joe Tanto (Sylvester
Stallone, possibly unaware that Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in Stay
Hungry was named Joe Santo). All of them take orders from a
wheelchair-bound Burt Reynolds, who spends the whole movie chewing on what
appears to be a neon orange plastic spoon. No doubt Reynolds thought this would
be a good bit of "character business." Anyhow, various drivers feud
over the women who come and go throughout the story, but we don't care; the
point is to see stuff moving fast. Which is where the good
news comes in, as the race sequences are genuinely fun and exciting -- albeit
gratuitously computer-enhanced -- featuring some truly preposterous crash
sequences. Director Renny Harlin is something of a mediocre action hand
to begin with, and this is certainly not his best (that might be