Not being a great car racing fan myself I found I was sitting down to Driven not long after fast and the Furious in which I expected the two films to be similar but found them completely different.

Driven had a bit more of a raw and realistic edge to it, which made it much more believable as a story. [ed. nah i won't comment on that... :) ]

The plot certainly isn’t a thinking persons plot but it is sufficient to get across the point and provide some spectacular special effects.

Kip Pardue plays a young rookie Championship auto race driver in the U.S. and is second only to Beau Brandenberg (Til Schweiger) in the championships at the beginning of the film. It seems though that Jimmy is losing his edge and needs some help. Jimmy’s brother and manager (Robert Sean Leonard) is most irritating at the best of times, and is pushing him harder and harder every day to win at all costs.

Of course this doesn’t pay off and the team manager (Burt Reynolds) steps in with a brilliant plan to get the kid back on track. Enter Joe Tanto (Sylvester Stallone) who has been persuaded to return to championship racing in an effort to mentor Jimmy and get his racing career back on track.

The battle between Beau and Jimmy goes on for several races until it can be finally determined whop is the better driver at the end of the season.

During the whole film there are of course the expected plot distractions in love interests that really play second fiddle to the driving.

The transfer is consistently razor sharp throughout. There are no instances of grain/shimmering or ailiasing to be found anywhere.

Shadow detail is perfect, never losing a hint of detail at all.

The colour palette attacks a broad rang of colours with ease and a very realistic and natural tone to them. No oversaturation or bleeding to be found here.

Dialogue was consistently clear throughout including some the European accents that would normally pose some difficulty to understand.

The surround channels have used continuously throughout the film and the support of effects based audio was concise and realistic, at times you could forgive yourself for thinking you were really there.

The Bass channel copped a hiding, giving the whole room a nice rumbling feeling throughout the races and also to support the rest of the audio track.

The score was well placed with basically just a mix of tracks from different musical talents including a bit of Tina Arena at one stage.