Driven (2001)-"PG-13"

Run Time:117 minutes

1 and 1/2 star out of 4

After witnessing on an "A&E Biography" episode that Sylvester Stallone was coming out with a new film, writen by and starring himself, I groaned. Sure, the original Rocky was a great film, full of heart, cool boxing scenes, and a dramatic ending, but, it wasn't good enough to spawn the four sequels that Stallone milked out of it. I don't know if any film is good enough for four sequels. Anyway, this newest action/drama, Driven is directed by Renny Harlin, a Finnish director famous for his previous action-reliant films, like Cliffhanger (1993), Deep Blue Sea (1999), and Die Hard 2 (1990). Driven is a movie best enjoyed by kids 12 and under, preferrably with dangerously short attention spans. The plot follows Jimmy Blye (played by Kip Pardue), a rookie race car driver with talent, but a lack of control and judgement in his big-time races. Facing stiff competition from his rival, Beau Brandenburg (Til Schweiger), and a member of his own team, Memo Moreno (Christian de la Fuente), Blye starts to fall apart. His sponsor, Carl Henry (Burt Reynolds), calls in a former champion of his, Joe Tanto (Sylvester Stallone), who also had a breakdown of sorts, to sort of mentor Blye, and help him out in the races. The story sort of just continues on from there, with the plot and characters not developing much (or at all), and the races becoming bigger and more important ones. Not like the plot really matters much in this movie anway, but that is pretty much it. Just throw in a couple of unrealistic and dangerous crashes, an 195 mile per hour chase through the streets of Chicago, some pretty girls in tight clothes, and a pounding techno score, and you have the movie described perfectly. Sure this film could be appealing to audiences, I'm not denying that. I would even venture to say that it is, excluding the first Rocky, one of the better things Stallone has had a part in. I'm just basically saying that, after a while, I begin to expect a little more from the endless stream of plotless, toughtless, heartless action films that seem to come out every season, a lot of which I don't even bother to see, anymore.