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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Driven (2001)

Driven (2001)

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Released 9-Jan-2002

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Action Menu Animation & Audio
Dolby Digital Trailer-Canyon
Audio Commentary-Renny Harlin (Director)
Deleted Scenes-+/- Sylvester Stallone commentary
Featurette-Making Of
Featurette-Conquering Speed Through Special Effects
Theatrical Trailer
Biographies-Cast & Crew
dts Trailer-Piano
Rating Rated PG
Year Of Production 2001
Running Time 111:46 (Case: 114)
RSDL / Flipper RSDL (78:49) Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 4 Directed By Renny Harlin
Studio
Distributor

Roadshow Home Entertainment
Starring Sylvester Stallone
Burt Reynolds
Kip Pardue
Til Schweiger
Case Amaray-Transparent
RPI $39.95 Music BT


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
English dts 5.1 (768Kb/s)
English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 2.35:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English for the Hearing Impaired Smoking No
Annoying Product Placement Yes, Sponsor's logos aplenty.
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    In Tony R's recent review of Sugar & Spice, he lamented the fact that the worst movies in terms of plot often received the best quality audio and video transfers. After sitting through Driven three times in two days, I must wholeheartedly concur with this statement. Driven features the most splendid and magnificent transfer you are likely to see; not one, but two mind-blowing 5.1 soundtracks in both Dolby Digital and dts variants; AND, a really, really bad, awfully contrived, sappy, cliché-ridden, dumb plot. Like the song by Mr Loaf "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad", but the visual and audio splendour alone does not make a great disc.

    Car racing. Days of Thunder had NASCAR. Driven features CART racing (Championship Auto Racing Team) as the featured sport. It's the American answer to Formula One which apparently isn't too popular in the USA (is that because they can't beat the European drivers?). The cars are similar to Formula One (what the differences are I don't know - they look the same to me and go just as fast - apologies to all the F1 aficionados), and the drivers appear to have similar-sized egos as well. This is what the story revolves around - the drivers.

    Rookie racer Jimmy Bly (Kip Pardue) has won several races throughout the year and is fast challenging the current world champion Beau Brandenberg (Til Schweiger). But while Jimmy was winning early in the season, he seems to now be having trouble maintaining the intensity and concentration required to perform and win in a sport that requires as much mental toughness off the track as it does on it. Under constant pressure from his brother/manager Demille (Robert Sean Leonard)  and team manager Carl Henry (Burt Reynolds - is he real or made of plastic?), Jimmy is about to crack. It looks like he needs help, so Carl contacts retired racer Joe Tanto (Sylvester Stallone) a one-time potential world-beater who quit before getting to the top. Tanto is hired as a mentor to Jimmy and co-driver in the Henry team. He's obviously not allowed to win a race, just figure in the placings and give whatever aid he can to Jimmy, so the young rookie can overcome his doubts and finish the race season, hopefully as champion.

    Of course, where would the story be without the proverbial love interest. Seems that Beau Brandenberg's flame, Sophia (Estella Warren), has been dumped by him so he can concentrate on finishing the season. Jimmy Bly needs a friend, and strikes up a bit of a thing with Sophia, much to Beau's chagrin. But Beau is enough of a man to let his racing do the talking (or is he?). Throw in separate match-making between Tanto's character and racing reporter Luc (Stacy Edwards), and Tanto's ex-wife bobbing up here and there and we have a lot of relationships to worry about (as well as several car races).

    Predictable, cliché-riddled, unoriginal, and with some really huge plot holes that makes Days Of Thunder look like The Godfather. You can work out exactly how it is going to end about twenty minutes into it, and everyone looks like a model - sure, there's reality. The effects are great, but sometimes just a little too great. The sight of cars crashing and sliding at times looks just a little too neat for my liking. With most of it being digitally produced, you often get the feeling that you are watching somebody in the local amusement arcade playing the Daytona USA racing game.

Don't wish to see plot synopses in the future? Change your configuration.

Transfer Quality

Video

     In a word, this is stunning. Absolutely stunning. Basically ignore my contempt for the plot above and rent this just to take a look at the video transfer. It is exquisite.

    We are presented with a transfer in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 which is 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is as sharp as a tack. Only a minor trace of edge enhancement is present that is not at all distracting, and even though most scenes are outside in full light, the shadow detail is perfect when the light becomes less than bright. There isn't a trace of grain or low level noise. I have seen few, if any, better video efforts than this. 

    Colours. Wow, the colours. This is the best representation of red and blue that I have ever seen. The reds are marvellously saturated but never to the point where they look oversaturated and unnatural. They are deep and vivid. With many motor races captured, there are many chances for the full colour palette to be displayed in the forms of the different cars and sponsors' colours. If there is a criticism to make, it is with the digital cars. They are perhaps just a little too perfect and can sometimes resemble a video game.

    There were no MPEG artefacts, no film-to-video artefacts, and only one film artefact of any note at 84:19 (a rather large blob on the tail of the flying aircraft). Not a bad effort at all.  

    We only get English for the Hearing Impaired subtitles. I sampled them for about half the film and found them to be excellent.

    This is a dual layered disc with RSDL formatting. The layer change at 78:49 in certainly noticeable, as Kip Pardue's character pauses while lying in a hospital bed, but it is not overly distracting as is reasonably well-handled.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The stunning video quality is matched by equally stunning and immersive audio presentation.

    Three audio tracks are available for your listening pleasure. Somewhat surprisingly, the Region 4 disc picks up both a Dolby Digital 5.1 and a dts 5.1 track, whereas the Region 1 title only gets the former. This is a rare occurrence that is nice to see.  There is also an audio commentary from director Renny Harlin. This is provided as a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. I listened to all three tracks in total.

    Any film featuring Sly Stallone will potentially have dialogue problems. Luckily, this one does not. There are no audio sync problems.

    The music is very, very distinct. The score is credited to BT (British Telecom maybe?). There isn't a great deal of score music, with the soundtrack comprised of mostly out-sourced songs. We get the full gamut of musical styles; rap, hip-hop, soul, contemporary, classical. It is unique, different, and quite catchy. Probably the best part of the whole film.

    The surrounds are used throughout. They really come into their own during the races with full directional use of the rears. The effect of cars whizzing around the room is quite neat. The race track announcer is also very distinct as he emanates from all five speakers at once, placing you right in the crowd.

    The subwoofer is also used extensively as you would imagine for any film featuring race cars. It's also well-used by the music, which features a significant bottom end at times.

Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

Menu Animation & Audio

    A stylised waving chequered flag in the background is all the animation consists of.  The audio is provided by a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack and features the sounds of cars racing.

Dolby Digital Trailer - Canyon

Audio Commentary

    Director Renny Harlin, whose previous credits include Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, and a bomb called Cutthroat Island, provides the commentary. Mostly scene-specific, he speaks clearly and eloquently about what he was trying to achieve with the film. Interestingly, he had to make wholesale cuts to the original screenplay (which was apparently over 200 pages long) and several of the character relationships had to be trimmed to almost nothing so the focus could be placed on Jimmy Bly's character. It looks like the film suffered as a result. The discussion of the film's technical aspects is the most interesting part, covering such topics as the way some scenes are digital (and you wouldn't pick it), or have been changed to suit the story (adding cars, changing livery). Look out for the director in his two cameo roles (he admits being two different characters was a mistake). 

Deleted Scenes

    A comprehensive 38:10 minutes of deleted scenes, though they are all presented as one chapter which makes navigation a bit tardy. They can be played with either the original audio track or with commentary from Sylvester Stallone. Listening to the commentary, I got the impression that Sly was quite disappointed that many of the scenes had been cut from the final film (it was his screenplay after all). Some of the scenes are quite long (8-10 minutes) and are actually more detailed and fleshed out scenes of the abridged versions that appear in the final cut.

Featurette-Making Of

    A reasonable making-of featurette this one. Running for 15:02 minutes and with video a mix of full screen 1.33:1 and movie highlights at 1.78:1 it is not 16x9 enhanced. Audio is Dolby Digital 2.0. This shows the pains the crew went to to make the film seem as realistic as possible by filming at actual CART races around the world. Not too much back-slapping is present which makes a nice change.

Featurette - Conquering Speed through Special Effects

    Running for 9:54 minutes, this is presented full screen 1.33:1 and shows the challenges faced by the visual effects designers in making the effects as seamless as possible. Makes for interesting viewing as you will see scenes from the film that you would have sworn were real but were actually completely digital.

Theatrical Trailer

    Quite a short trailer, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this is more of a teaser trailer than the full length one. It only runs for 1:14 minutes. Presented in the theatrical aspect of 2.35:1 it also features 16x9 enhancement. Audio is Dolby Digital 2.0.  There is no dialogue present at all throughout, only music. It's more like a music video than a trailer.

Biographies-Cast & Crew

    Comprehensive bios for the main cast and the director. 

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

 

    The Region 4 disc misses out on

    The Region 1 Disc misses out on

    The local product crosses the finishing line and takes the chequered flag well in front of the Region 1 title this time around (sorry I couldn't help it).

Summary

    Driven's plot is really weak. It's an unoriginal, cliché-ridden, and generally dumb story. If Sylvester Stallone supposedly worked for years on this script, then I'd suggest that he shouldn't have bothered or he shouldn't have let director Renny Harlin chop the screenplay to pieces to make it fit under the Hollywood limit of two hours.

    Having said that, the video transfer afforded this title is absolutely first-rate, top-shelf and stunning and deserves a look even if only via a rental. 

    The audio is also pretty darn good, and we get the advantage of a dts track to complement the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Darren Walters (It's . . . just the vibe . . . of my bio)
Wednesday, December 12, 2001
Review Equipment
DVDLoewe Xemix 5006DD, using RGB output
DisplayLoewe Calida (84cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials.
AmplificationHarmon/Kardon AVR7000.
SpeakersFront - B&W 602S2, Centre - B&W CC6S2, Rear - B&W 601S2, Sub - Energy E:xl S10

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