GASSED GUZZLER

By Greg Walton

Review Film Critic

It would be easy to dismiss the sport of auto racing as a monotonous waste of fossil fuel enjoyed by throngs of Kid Rock look-alikes who get a buzz off exhaust fumes, burnt rubber, and oversized novelty hats.  But then how do you explain its status as the celebrity sport d'jour - attracting such high profile adrenaline junkies as Tom Cruise, Paul Newman, and Sylvester Stallone?  While most of us can barely afford the gas to get to work, these yahoos are topping off the tank and measuring their mettle on a track against their fellow ego-centric action heroes. Little wonder then that racing is also the vanity project of choice for the Hollywood set.  Cruise drove Days of Thunder to mediocre success but still came away with a lot of bugs on the windshield.  11 years later, Stallone, squeegee in hand, is ready to give the racing film a fuel injected Rocky treatment.  Far from the ultimate gear-head epic, Driven at least settles into a comfortable middle-of-the-road joy ride for its intended audience of hero worshippers and potential pit crew.

 Buried somewhere beneath a wall of incessant music, there's a soap opera

size plot that includes Stallone as a washed up racer brought in to tutor a

naive rookie, Jimmy Blye (Kip Pardue, the QB of Remember the Titans).  The

story splits from there into a jumbled road map of relationships (Stallone

and ex-wife Gina Gershon, Stallone and his new reporter flame, rookie Blye

and new girlfriend Sophia (Estella Warren) who's stolen Angelina Jolie's

lips and is on the rebound from lead bad guy Beau Brandenburg (Til

Schweiger).  It's like The Young and the Restless only and every once and

while some guys go round and round on the track really, really fast.

 The script by Stallone is a maudlin tribute to these brave men and their

racing machines that has just enough zip to keep your eyes on the road.

Are there really throngs of teenage racing groupies who squeeze their

heroes' butts and shriek like banshees?  Just go with it.  Much bigger

problems crop up from director Renny Harlin, whose reputation in Hollywood

has about as many hills and valleys as Cliffhanger, his last collaboration with

the Italian Stallion.

Besides one butt-clenching chase scene through the streets of Chicago in a

couple of stolen prototype speedsters, the racing sequences look less

convincing than a game of Gran Turismo on your trusty Playstation (whose

logo pops up quite a bit along the track incidently).

The acting is a notch or two better than it should be and Stallone's

affection for the sport is obvious.  But just in case, there's  plenty of

Eye of the Tiger  music montages to get the trailer a' rockin'.

Driven  does its best to convince you all those rednecks aren't  just

waiting to see the track run red with blood after a fifteen car pile up on

the last lap.

Grade: C

BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR

Freddie Got Fingered is MTV comedian Tom Green's  attempt to reach a

broader audience.

If a broader audience exists for udder sucking, carcass wearing, and horse

masturbation perhaps we should nuke ourselves right now and spare the world

a slow cultural death.  Other than curiosity seekers who plunk down 7 bucks

and leave the theater feeling miserably repentant, audience members who

actually enjoy Freddie Got Fingered should be added to some secret FBI list

- right next to the right-wing terroristts who read Mein Kampf and Catcher

in the Rye.  Yeah, it's that bad.

While The Tom Green Show was at least uncomfortably amusing, rubbing your

butt on old ladies shouldn't be enough to get you a movie deal (we have

Drew Barrymore to thank for that).  His exploits as a Canadian

'wild-man-on-the-street' produced laughs at the expense of unsuspecting

bystanders whose genuine horrified reactions to Green's terminally immature

behavior are what made the show 'must-see' exploitation TV.

But Freddie ditches the spontaneous humor in exchange for the worst element

Tom Green has to offer: himself.   The movie props him up like a latter-day

Latka and expects you to appreciate his outlandish antics as some sort of

performance art.

Poop on Microphone might go for a couple grand in a gallery, but it doesn't

sell tickets.  At least, I hope not.

Grade: D