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Driven: Special Edition
Warner Bros. // PG-13 // September 18, 2001
List Price: $24.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Movie:
Sylvester Stallone simply can't seem to catch a break. Judge Dredd caused the star to be something of a joke with lines like "I am the law!". An attempt at an independent comeback in "Copland" actually offered quite a good performance, but the film went largely unnoticed. "Driven" was another film that was written by the star (as was "Rocky" and "Cliffhanger"), but reviews and word of mouth kept audiences away. While not quite as poor as many made the film out to be (mainly thanks to flashy, entertaining direction by Renny Harlin), the film relies on cliches instead of bringing anything new to the table. Not that anyone's really brought anything new to the racing genre - "Days of Thunder" wasn't terrible, but it wasn't exactly much of a success, either. "Driven" plays like the racing version of Oliver Stone's football film "Any Given Sunday". This picture has the same sort of flash and striking cinematography, but it forgets the character development that the previous film at least was partially successful with. In fact, the cars remain the real stars of the movie here.
Stallone plays Joe Tanto, a former ace race car driver who's been out of the business for years, but asked to return by old friend Carl Henry (Burt Reynolds), who wants the old pro to ride alongside the new rookie, Jimmy Blye (Kip Pardue). Their competition is Beau Brandenburg (Til Schweiger). There's even a romantic triangle shoehorned into the plot, as Sophia (Estella Warren) moves back and forth between the two young racers.
There's several factors that make "Driven" suffer, though. Besides the lackluster nature of the screenplay, the performances are not particularly good, especially the two newcomers who play the competing racers. The only performance that really manages to shine is Warren. The former swimmer and Sports Illustrated model really does have a terrific presence and, impressively, is able to make the stereotypical lines of dialogue sound genuine. Hopefully, after performances here and in "Planet of the Apes", she'll move on to bigger and better things. Gina Gershon is stuck playing the Stallone character's ex-wife in a shrill subplot that goes nowhere. As for Stallone, he doesn't do a great deal here, nor does he seem to want to as he mostly appears content to set in the background and let the younger stars have their moment.
Although I've been told that "Driven" makes some errors in terms of how it portrays racing, I can't be sure about the film's accuracy or whether or not they actually got the companies involved in working with the production. The film's crashes are sometimes fairly remarkable - they occasionally betray their CGI origins with some moments that look somewhat fake, but combined with the film's unbelievable sound mix, the moments did manage to convince. There's even a completely absurd race between two characters through the streets of Chicago. Speaking of technical elements, "Driven" is impressive. Mauro Fiore, who was also the cinematographer of Stallone's failure "Get Carter" gives "Driven" an extremely flashy and sharp look that works particularly well. I was discussing the "Any Given Sunday" similarities before and, in fact, editor Stuart Levy also worked on "Sunday" - the editing often seems similar here. Although the nearly two hour film moves at a good clip for the majority, there are a few moments here and there that seemed unncessessary.
"Driven" remains stylish, loud and fast, but essentially empty. It moves quickly and presents rather basic entertainment now and then, but it's utterly forgettable afterwards.
The DVD
VIDEO: As marvelous as the sound quality is, the image quality is almost equally outstanding. Warner presents "Driven" in an absolutely stellar 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen edition that is often almost inches away from perfection. Sharpness and detail are nothing short of spectacular, as the amount of depth and detail to the image is nothing short of remarkable. The image is consistently, whether light or dark, indoor or out, consistently smooth and "film-like".
The presentation is so very close to being perfect. There's only the very slightest hint of edge enhancement to take away from an otherwise splendid presentation. No signs of pixelation were spotted, nor were any print flaws. I didn't see any speckles, marks or other problems. The very slight edge enhancement probably won't even be noticed by many. This is a very clean, smooth and often gorgeous presentation.
Colors looked incredible throughout the movie, appearing well-saturated and vibrant, with absolutely no smearing or other flaws. Black level is perfect, as are flesh tones. This is really Warner's best effort that I can remember - even more impressive than their previous best - "Any Given Sunday".
SOUND: The film's Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is really a tremendous effort, providing one of the most impressive audio experiences that I've had the pleasure to listen to in many months. Supervising sound editors J. Paul Huntsman and Christopher Aud (both of whom also worked on Harlin's "Deep Blue Sea") have done a splendid job at creating a sound mix that's an assault on the senses. I've said before that there have been a few films that have almost been made entertaining by the sheer thrilling force of their sound mix ("The Haunting" being another example). Mark "Driven" down on that list. Surrounds fire up in outstanding fashion during the racing sequences, putting the viewer directly in the middle of the action.
When the film isn't putting together some intense racing sequences, the rock and techno score by BT (who also scored "Go" and "Fast and the Furious") is mixed marvelously to all five main speakers - the score is nicely chosen and keepts what energy the film has going. Audio quality is absolutely solid, as well. I haven't heard music mixed this well and with such amazing presence since "Coyote Ugly", which also had a stunning music mix. Dialogue seemed a little soft every so often, but this didn't cause a great deal of concern, since this story could likely have been told without words. Low bass is, as one would expect, occasionally quite powerful. Harlin has believed that sound plays a role in all of the movies that he's done so far and that's most evident here. Fantastic work. Hopefully a DTS version will become available at some point.
MENUS:: Basic, non-animated main menu with racing sounds in the background.
EXTRAS::
Commentary: This is a commentary from director Renny Harlin. Harlin has always been one of my favorite commentators when it comes to DVD editions. He's a warm, friendly and chatty presence and his support of the DVD format has him coming into each of these sessions prepared to share as much as he can. That happens again here as Harlin tells us a great deal about the sport as well as some technical details about both the cars and the production itself. There are a few minor gaps of silence during the later portion of the movie, but overall, I thought Harlin offered another interesting and informative track. He never talks about simply what's going on on-screen and instead of just praising actors and talking about their characters, he analyzes their intentions and actions. There's not a lot to discuss in terms of character and motivation here, but he gives it a try.
Conquering Speed Through Special Effects: This is a featurette that's slightly under 10 minutes in length, but really does a terrific job at bringing the viewer into the middle of the effects production process. Although I didn't think the effects were always "seamless" (meaning, occasionally they looked like effects), it's amazing to see the kind of work that went into digitally creating cars and races.
Deleted Scenes: There are a massive amount of deleted clips and moments that add up to a total of about 50 minutes. They are offered with commentary from actor/writer Sylvester Stallone. The film had to be cut down to play better in terms of the theatrical showings per day and, as such, some moments of character development had to be dropped, which can be seen here. Some of the moments seemed to be removed simply for pacing reasons, but the characters are fleshed out a bit more in some of the scenes included. Stallone's audio commentary is really quite interesting and informative, providing a great deal of description about the scene as well as his thoughts about the deletion of the scenes.
Also: "The Making Of Driven", which is a usual promotional piece that runs about 15 minutes or so, trailer, cast & crew bios and game trailer.
Final Thoughts: "Driven" is occasionally silly, rather weakly acted and predictable, yet it did remain at least watchable. Warner's DVD presentation is magnificent, with audio/video quality so good it's shocking and some fine supplements. Many may find this a good rental.
Sylvester Stallone simply can't seem to catch a break. Judge Dredd caused the star to be something of a joke with lines like "I am the law!". An attempt at an independent comeback in "Copland" actually offered quite a good performance, but the film went largely unnoticed. "Driven" was another film that was written by the star (as was "Rocky" and "Cliffhanger"), but reviews and word of mouth kept audiences away. While not quite as poor as many made the film out to be (mainly thanks to flashy, entertaining direction by Renny Harlin), the film relies on cliches instead of bringing anything new to the table. Not that anyone's really brought anything new to the racing genre - "Days of Thunder" wasn't terrible, but it wasn't exactly much of a success, either. "Driven" plays like the racing version of Oliver Stone's football film "Any Given Sunday". This picture has the same sort of flash and striking cinematography, but it forgets the character development that the previous film at least was partially successful with. In fact, the cars remain the real stars of the movie here.
Stallone plays Joe Tanto, a former ace race car driver who's been out of the business for years, but asked to return by old friend Carl Henry (Burt Reynolds), who wants the old pro to ride alongside the new rookie, Jimmy Blye (Kip Pardue). Their competition is Beau Brandenburg (Til Schweiger). There's even a romantic triangle shoehorned into the plot, as Sophia (Estella Warren) moves back and forth between the two young racers.
There's several factors that make "Driven" suffer, though. Besides the lackluster nature of the screenplay, the performances are not particularly good, especially the two newcomers who play the competing racers. The only performance that really manages to shine is Warren. The former swimmer and Sports Illustrated model really does have a terrific presence and, impressively, is able to make the stereotypical lines of dialogue sound genuine. Hopefully, after performances here and in "Planet of the Apes", she'll move on to bigger and better things. Gina Gershon is stuck playing the Stallone character's ex-wife in a shrill subplot that goes nowhere. As for Stallone, he doesn't do a great deal here, nor does he seem to want to as he mostly appears content to set in the background and let the younger stars have their moment.
Although I've been told that "Driven" makes some errors in terms of how it portrays racing, I can't be sure about the film's accuracy or whether or not they actually got the companies involved in working with the production. The film's crashes are sometimes fairly remarkable - they occasionally betray their CGI origins with some moments that look somewhat fake, but combined with the film's unbelievable sound mix, the moments did manage to convince. There's even a completely absurd race between two characters through the streets of Chicago. Speaking of technical elements, "Driven" is impressive. Mauro Fiore, who was also the cinematographer of Stallone's failure "Get Carter" gives "Driven" an extremely flashy and sharp look that works particularly well. I was discussing the "Any Given Sunday" similarities before and, in fact, editor Stuart Levy also worked on "Sunday" - the editing often seems similar here. Although the nearly two hour film moves at a good clip for the majority, there are a few moments here and there that seemed unncessessary.
"Driven" remains stylish, loud and fast, but essentially empty. It moves quickly and presents rather basic entertainment now and then, but it's utterly forgettable afterwards.
The DVD
VIDEO: As marvelous as the sound quality is, the image quality is almost equally outstanding. Warner presents "Driven" in an absolutely stellar 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen edition that is often almost inches away from perfection. Sharpness and detail are nothing short of spectacular, as the amount of depth and detail to the image is nothing short of remarkable. The image is consistently, whether light or dark, indoor or out, consistently smooth and "film-like".
The presentation is so very close to being perfect. There's only the very slightest hint of edge enhancement to take away from an otherwise splendid presentation. No signs of pixelation were spotted, nor were any print flaws. I didn't see any speckles, marks or other problems. The very slight edge enhancement probably won't even be noticed by many. This is a very clean, smooth and often gorgeous presentation.
Colors looked incredible throughout the movie, appearing well-saturated and vibrant, with absolutely no smearing or other flaws. Black level is perfect, as are flesh tones. This is really Warner's best effort that I can remember - even more impressive than their previous best - "Any Given Sunday".
SOUND: The film's Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is really a tremendous effort, providing one of the most impressive audio experiences that I've had the pleasure to listen to in many months. Supervising sound editors J. Paul Huntsman and Christopher Aud (both of whom also worked on Harlin's "Deep Blue Sea") have done a splendid job at creating a sound mix that's an assault on the senses. I've said before that there have been a few films that have almost been made entertaining by the sheer thrilling force of their sound mix ("The Haunting" being another example). Mark "Driven" down on that list. Surrounds fire up in outstanding fashion during the racing sequences, putting the viewer directly in the middle of the action.
When the film isn't putting together some intense racing sequences, the rock and techno score by BT (who also scored "Go" and "Fast and the Furious") is mixed marvelously to all five main speakers - the score is nicely chosen and keepts what energy the film has going. Audio quality is absolutely solid, as well. I haven't heard music mixed this well and with such amazing presence since "Coyote Ugly", which also had a stunning music mix. Dialogue seemed a little soft every so often, but this didn't cause a great deal of concern, since this story could likely have been told without words. Low bass is, as one would expect, occasionally quite powerful. Harlin has believed that sound plays a role in all of the movies that he's done so far and that's most evident here. Fantastic work. Hopefully a DTS version will become available at some point.
MENUS:: Basic, non-animated main menu with racing sounds in the background.
EXTRAS::
Commentary: This is a commentary from director Renny Harlin. Harlin has always been one of my favorite commentators when it comes to DVD editions. He's a warm, friendly and chatty presence and his support of the DVD format has him coming into each of these sessions prepared to share as much as he can. That happens again here as Harlin tells us a great deal about the sport as well as some technical details about both the cars and the production itself. There are a few minor gaps of silence during the later portion of the movie, but overall, I thought Harlin offered another interesting and informative track. He never talks about simply what's going on on-screen and instead of just praising actors and talking about their characters, he analyzes their intentions and actions. There's not a lot to discuss in terms of character and motivation here, but he gives it a try.
Conquering Speed Through Special Effects: This is a featurette that's slightly under 10 minutes in length, but really does a terrific job at bringing the viewer into the middle of the effects production process. Although I didn't think the effects were always "seamless" (meaning, occasionally they looked like effects), it's amazing to see the kind of work that went into digitally creating cars and races.
Deleted Scenes: There are a massive amount of deleted clips and moments that add up to a total of about 50 minutes. They are offered with commentary from actor/writer Sylvester Stallone. The film had to be cut down to play better in terms of the theatrical showings per day and, as such, some moments of character development had to be dropped, which can be seen here. Some of the moments seemed to be removed simply for pacing reasons, but the characters are fleshed out a bit more in some of the scenes included. Stallone's audio commentary is really quite interesting and informative, providing a great deal of description about the scene as well as his thoughts about the deletion of the scenes.
Also: "The Making Of Driven", which is a usual promotional piece that runs about 15 minutes or so, trailer, cast & crew bios and game trailer.
Final Thoughts: "Driven" is occasionally silly, rather weakly acted and predictable, yet it did remain at least watchable. Warner's DVD presentation is magnificent, with audio/video quality so good it's shocking and some fine supplements. Many may find this a good rental.
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