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OK, OK, I admit it.
The many news reports of Dale Earnhardt’s fatal accident
had me wondering about the auto racing life style, and its
enormous popularity; that is one of the reasons I was interested
in seeing “Driven.” But
it was not really a morbid curiosity.
I wanted to try to understand the attraction of the fans
and the racers. As the movie tells us in the opening montage (one of many,
many increasingly tedious montages in the film) the sport is
worldwide and has over 900 million spectators.
So I was wondering what I was missing.
I was hoping the film would tell me.
It didn’t. But
I assume it is the fault of the film, and not the sport.
Ironically though the film is 100% about racing, and spends
a good deal of time in exposition mode, explaining the characters
and the sport, it tell us nothing of any use.
Well, little of use anyway.
The film did teach me that race car drivers are either
driving, looking at computer screens simulating driving, moping
around in discos or trying to steal one another’s girl friends.
It also taught me that there are a number of races around
the world, and somehow the drivers collect points and at the end
of the season, a driver is selected as the world champ – though
I’m not quite sure how it works.
The film takes us through an entire season.
In the first few minutes we learn that last year’s champ
Beau Brandenburg (Til Schweiger) is being challenged by the rookie
Jimmy Bly (Kip Pardue who played California quarterback Sunshine
in the “Remember the Titans”).
We also learn that everyone in the film has a long history
together. That seemed
cool at first because I thought it would lead to complex
characters and relationships, but as it turns out the characters
and relationships are very much like those you might find in a
soap opera – I mean the history is there, but it is basically a
history of who divorced who and is now married to who, or who used
to be who’s best buddy, but is now on a different team and
can’t really pal around any more. For example, Joe Tanto (Sylvester Stallone ) has a history,
though the details are only hinted at, but apparently he used to
be a great driver, and somewhere along the line got scared, or
something. It seems that he was forced out the business,
apparently by team owner Carl Henry (Burt Reynolds) but is now
brought back to somehow help the rookie.
I expected the story to be pretty thin, and it is, but I
expected to have great special effects that would let me feel as
though I were driving at 200 MPH or at least sitting in the
stands. A few effects
are cool, but most are pretty hokey.
The sound was very good, and, though I did not recognize
any of the music, it was very appropriate for the film – loud
with lots of bass. The
film was very colorful, and used a lot of quick paced cuts of the
races, the crowd, the pits, etc.
But after the 15th race, I could swear I saw all
the same people in the crowd.
The constant product logos and billboards got very annoying
(though I am sure it is accurate that in real life every race car
and driver’s uniform has every inch covered by ads.)
Another major reason I wanted to see the film was that Stallone
wrote it. As I am sure most of us know, he wrote the classic Rocky
because he was frustrated that he could not get a good part in a
movie. I imagined
that he wrote “Driven” for similar reasons – and I was
hoping for something exceptional. “Driven” is not exceptional at all.
In summary, it was a pretty poor soap opera of an unrealistic
story, dull dialog, fairly hokey special effects, colorful scenes,
fair action, good sound and a pretty good soundtrack.
I wasn’t quite bored, but on the verge.
I had hoped for much more.
-- Pappy
( 1 1/2 out of 4 pops )
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