Driven

The spirit of moderately better racing movies such as Grand Prix and Days of Thunder is buried somewhere inside Driven under heaps of clichés, stock characters, video game gimmickry, overly elaborate Ginsu knife editing, moronically contrived filler sequences, inadequate special effects and about four minutes of plot. Set in the wound-up world of open-wheel racing, those four formulaic minutes go something like this: An irascible, crippled car owner (Burt Reynolds) hires a washed-up ex-driver (Sylvester Stallone) to help season an unfocused rookie boy-racer (Kip Pardue) so he can beat his rival (Til Schweiger), the reigning circuit champion. Figuring that--with enough distraction--no one will care a stitch about the plot, director Renny Harlin fills the screen with elaborate crashes and Nintendo-style driver's-perspective shots; unfortunately, too much of this footage is computer-generated, and boy does it show. Not recommended. (R. Blackwelder)