Rev up your engines, gentlemen.
Slip into your hot pants, ladies.
Driven is the world of championship racing courtesy of director Renny Harlin and writer-star Sylvester Stallone.
It's a world of fast cars and even faster female fans who stalk the drivers as if they were rock stars.
Unlike rock stars, the men behind the wheels remain chaste.
For such a testosterone-fuelled movie there's nary a sex scene in Driven, which will seem odd or refreshing depending on one's perspective.
Instead, Driven is the story of a competition between an established champion and the young upstart who is challenging the veteran's title.
Beau Brandenburg (Til Schweiger) is trying to save both his title and his girlfriend Sophia (Estella Warren) from rookie Jimmy Blye (Kip Pardue), who has his eye on both.
Beau dumped Sophia because he felt she was distracting him from his destiny only to discover he couldn't really operate on or off the track without her.
It seems to be a common ailment of racers. The same thing happened to former racing great Joe Tanto (Stallone) who pushed his adoring wife Cathy (Gina Gershon) into the arms of his closest rival Memo (Cristian de la Fuente).
Beau, Sophia and Jimmy have much to learn from that other triangle.
Rejection turned Cathy into a screeching harridan, Joe into a moping loser and Memo into a grateful but befuddled lifelong friend.
Girlfriends may come and go but male friendships forged through rivalry on the track survive unscathed.
This rather ludicrous scenario might have worked had Harlin cast the players with actors who could bring some semblance of emotion and naturalness to the roles. Warren is a model who can execute some impressive splits in a swimming pool but she flounders with every attempt to speak and walk at the same time.
Also a graduate of the cat walk, Pardue suffers from many of the same ailments when he tries to emote. To say Warren and Pardue fail to generate any sparks in their romantic scenes is an understatement of epic proportions, but heck, they sure look swell. Schweiger is touted as a major star in Germany but something didn't translate in his Atlantic crossing.
The dialogue sequences in Driven are so awkward it's a treat each time Harlin brings his cameras back to the race track.
The driving sequences are truly breathtaking because, at times, Harlin literally puts the viewer in the driver's seat. The cameras are mounted in the cars, simulating the experience of drivers.
The crashes are created by computers and are so realistic Harlin inserts one every few laps so the competitions eventually resemble a demolition derby.
Though they travel the globe competing in at least a dozen races, no other drivers ever occupy the lead or second position in a race. It's a two-man sport this world of open-wheel racing.
To his credit, Stallone attempts to explore the mindset of racers as much as the technical aspects of the sport. His dialogue is a bit corny as are the relationships, but no more so than those Rocky screenplays he churned out in the past.
Stallone shows the dialogue can work if the actors are capable of injecting some sincerity into the words, which he does with remarkable ease and skill.
He and Burt Reynolds, as the owner of the cars Jimmy Bly keeps wrecking, share some taut and powerful moments that almost rival the action on the track.
(More on: Driven).
(This film is rated PG)
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