Sylvester Stallone revs up ‘Driven’ with racing only

'Driven' Director: Renny Harlin Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Burt Reynolds, Kip Pardue MPAA Rating: PG-13, for language and some intense crash sequences Cinema Listings Internet Movie Database Warner Bros. Official Site CDnow Soundtrack

Jimmy Bly (Kip Pardue), the great young American hope of open-wheel racing, has a conniption when his opposite-gender interest, Sophia Simone (Estella Warren), leaves his fender to share a hot Ovaltine with his track adversary, the German Beau Brandenburg (Til Schweiger).

Darn her, and darn her sox, too.

She just left Beau for Jimmy. Now she's back with Beau.

What a hussy!

It seems all a guy needs is car keys and a subscription to Tread & Floor Mat. Jiminy Cricket, Jimmy Bly! You don't suppose she's one of those loose women you hear about - the kind who hang out at bowling banquets and international mumblety-peg tournaments with equally loose men?

In a fit of pique, Jimmy barges out of the formal party, hops in the handiest open-wheeled racer and tears out, careening through the streets of Chicago at 195 miles per hour. No, really. We see it in wide-screen digital numbers.

Joe Tanto (writer-producer Sylvester Stallone), who is Jimmy's racing teammate, reasons that two maniacs ripping across a metropolis are better than one.

Joe revs up his droopy eyelids, hops into another conveniently handy open-wheeled racer and floors it to 195, too. What a guy! What a stud! What a putz!

While all Illinois gets out of the way, Humpty and Dumpty show us what reckless nincompoops they are.

Eventually they screech to a stop and leap out of their vehicles. As dozens look on, Joe gives it to Jimmy straight from the shoulder.

'Trust yourself,' he says. Oh, and have a will to win.

You expected something sage from Stallone, like: 'Just wanted to remind you, if you pass a

7-Eleven, big guy, pick up some Fruit Loops and pure pork sausage for breakfast, huh?'

Very often, when an actor is rounding that corner into possible box-office oblivion, he writes himself a really good role, as Stallone did when he was taking his shot in 'Rocky' 25 years ago.

But now he comes up with 'Driven'•

There isn't a character here with the dimension of Rocky Balboa's turtles, Cuff and Link.

Joe was once 'the wild man of the circuit.' He's called back by hard-nosed open-wheel owner Carl Henry (Burt Reynolds), a mean old mister in a wheelchair who barks cruel barbs from his concealed heart.

Carl wants Joe to replace Memo Moreno (Cristian De La Fuente) - no relation to Xerox Magee - as young Jimmy's teammate and to run interference for him.

Wouldn't you know Memo makes a note to himself to show up with his wife, Cathy (Gina Gershon), who used to be Joe's wife?

Oh, Joe! You didn't send her packing because she flushed the turtles, did you, buddy?

Then there's DeMille Bly (Robert Sean Leonard), Jimmy's jealous brother-manager. DeMille doesn't trust Sophia any farther than you could throw Carl's hairpiece. In fact, like Memo, DeMille has had the fax on Sophia since she first raced engines.

Reporter Lucretia Jones (Stacy Edwards), who's covering the 20-race international championship, has the inside track on Joe's coy grin, but if she ever actually took a note or taped an interview she'd hurt herself.

You have to give it to Stallone. Not since 'Dick Tracy' have there been characters with names such as Lucretia, DeMille and Memo.

You might think that with Stallone and Reynolds in two of the leading roles, 'Driven' might turn into 'Rocky and the Bandit.'

No such thing, although that might have been a better idea.

As we zip around the planet for race after generic race, each city's sequence begins with good second-unit location photography.

But Renny Harlin's film is filled with music videos that are over-pumped with terrible scoring by an electronic musician named Brian Transeau, who prefers to be known as BT.

I have it on good authority that if I die a bad person, I'll be consigned to the part of hell where all of the elevators play the soundtrack from 'Driven.'

There's not a whit of information about drivers or driving in 'Driven,' nor any psychology of the sport. The racing sequences play like a video game in which the accidents are augmented electronically.

We never see a driver other than the main three in each race. Doesn't Beau have someone to run interference• Wouldn't it be more interesting to populate the races with - I dunno - people?

And why are the announcers afflicted by poor syntax ('Somebody wants their job back') and redundance ('They wound up as a team together')?

Someone should have sent the screenwriter a memo. One more script like this and Stallone will be riding BT's elevators, too.

Ed Blank can be reached at (412) 854-5555 or eblank@tribweb.com .