Driven (2001)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Instant Favorite.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

A young hot shot driver is in the middle of a championship season and is coming apart at the seams. A former CART champion is called in to give him guidance. Driven is for sure not my favorite Stallone movie or my favorite from the ones he produced or wrote but it's still a pretty nice movie and let me talk about the flaws first of all some characters could be directed far better for example Jimmy played by Kip Pardue, the cgi is mediocre and it can be easily spot on but at least it's not as bad as the cgi from the Star Wars Prequels and that scene when the car crashed and fly around from the Race to the river was a bit over the top although the director isn't that bad into filming this film they could easily find someone better although he has directed some pretty cool movies for example Die Hard 2 and some crappy ones like The Legend of Hercules. It's not the best F1 movie ever made but still it's worth your time just for Sylvester Stallone only if you want my advice go check out Rush from 2013 directed by Ron Howard and stars Chris Hemsworth and Olivia Wilde.

Continuing my plan to watch every Sly Stallone movie in his filmography in order, I come to 2001's Driven.Plot In A Paragraph: Talented young race-car driver Jimmy Bly (Kip Pardew) has started losing his focus and begins to slip in the race rankings. With much riding on Bly, car owner Carl Henry (a delightful Burt Reynolds) brings former racing star Joe Tanto (Stallone) on board to help Bly. Once again (as with Get Carter) Sly wanted to make a character driven movie like Copland. What he ended up with was almost a supporting role in his own melodramatic soap opera. His original script was 220 pages long, and according to director Renny Harlin's commentary, his first cut of the movie was 4 hours long. It's amazing he thought what was here, made the best movie. The 51 minutes of deleted footage included as special feature on DVD show a much better movie was left on the cutting room floor. Rumour has it, the studio had lost confidence in Sly's ability to open a movie as the lead, and had a lot of his scenes cut, with more more focus put on the younger supporting characters. It's to the movies detriment Harlin went along with this, as Sly is the best thing in the movie. As for the rest of the cast, with the exception of Burt Reynolds, Til Schweiger and Brent Briscoe the supporting cast are awful Kip Pardew isn't as bad as Robert Sean Leonard, Cristian De La Fuente, Gina Gerahon and Stacy Edwards but he is bad enough. The coin trick scene is one of the coolest things in a Sly movie. However the car chase in the streets of Chicago, using the racing cars is one of the silliest things In any of Sly's movies. I think if Sly directed this movie himself, it may have turned out very differently, as listening to his commentary on the DVD, you can tell he is dissatisfied that some good character driven scenes were cut. He later reused some of these ideas in 'Rocky Balboa'. My advice is to check out the deleted scenes on the DVD to see what could have been.Stallone was asked in an interview about films he would wish had not done, and along with 'Rhinestone' and 'Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot', he listed this as one of them.

The story, the dialog, the racing, the physics, I am just amazed at how bad this movie is.I am trying to think of any redeeming qualities of this film and the only thing I can come up with is that the people you think will be the bad guys aren't. But it's not any sort of mystery.Unfortunately, it's all about poorly executed story line ... actually, story lines. There are a few of them, and each and every one is poorly done.This movie never should have been made. Reynolds fans, Stallone fans, racing fans and movie fans should all stay away from this one.

I find it astonishing that some people felt this was a good film, close to a good film, something for racing fans or ANYTHING other than utter garbage. As a petrolhead I am embarrassed by films such as this as it paints such a bad image for a sport I love. Herby was more realistic, the effects are dire the acting worse and the entire film should be wiped from history. I know the racers who appeared in it were embarrassed, Stallone should be even more so and thanks to Bernie for not letting this utter tool near F1.This is not motorsport, it's not close. Avoid at all costs or ensure a noose and a chair is at close hand, you'll need them by 15 minutes in!