{"id":459523,"date":"2001-07-01T17:00:22","date_gmt":"2001-07-02T00:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportscardigest.com\/\/?p=117036"},"modified":"2024-02-12T13:24:08","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T13:24:08","slug":"driven-crazy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/driven-crazy\/","title":{"rendered":"Driven Crazy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ok, Ok\u2026 here\u2019s the pitch. You\u2019ve got this kinda mush-mouthed, body-builder guy who is a washed-up racecar driver, see? We\u2019ll get a big name to play him like Sly Stallone \u2013 movie sells itself at this point, right? And his former owner \u2013 let\u2019s say he\u2019s wheelchair-bound like Frank Williams, only with a really horrible facelift \u2013 anyways, the owner calls him out of retirement to teach this young kid how to hum in his helmet in order to win races. You with me so far, chief? Now the kid\u2019s nemesis \u2013 let\u2019s call him Dieter \u2013 is a handsome but totally uncompelling, teutonic automaton\u2026 kind of a miniature racing version of Arnold Schwarzenegger, only we can\u2019t afford him so we\u2019ll hire some guy who looks the part and we\u2019ll teach him how to act along the way. Now here\u2019s where it gets good\u2026 these guys race for what we\u2019ll call the \u201cWorld Championship,\u201d only it won\u2019t be Formula One, because those guys wouldn\u2019t really give us the time of day. Instead, we got approval from these other guys called CART to do whatever we want at all their races and yet we don\u2019t have to mention their names once in the movie! Isn\u2019t that great?! So anyways, we take Stallone and a bunch of good looking, talentless kids, we string together some really loud techno music (the kids love this stuff), with a lot of video-game-like animation and just a skosh of real racing footage and BAAAM! We\u2019re talking box office baby! Big Box office. What\u2019s that? The script? Who needs a script when you got Stallone! Besides, there\u2019s no budget for a script. No, we solved that problem by getting Sly to write the script. Come on, how hard can it be??<\/em><\/p>\n

Sound hard to believe? Does to me too. And yet a lot of high paid knowledgeable people had to buy into this \u201cconcept\u201d to turn it into the stomach-turner they call \u201cDriven.\u201d In case you couldn\u2019t tell by now, I hated the movie. HATED IT. And yet I wanted so badly to like it. After all, it\u2019s only once every 10-15 years that someone works up the funding and the cojones to make a racing film. These usually fall into one of two categories: those true to the sport that are box office disasters (i.e., \u201cGrand Prix\u201d and \u201cLe Mans\u201d); or those that do reasonably well at the box office but portray a shallow, myopic view of the world of racing (i.e., insert any other racing movie except \u201cGrand Prix\u201d and \u201cLe Mans\u201d here).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n