#TIFF18 Review: Driven

By John Corrado

★★½ (out of 4)

With its silver body and gull-wing doors, the DeLorean sports car has become an iconic part of pop culture history through its usage as a time machine in the Back to the Future films. But what’s lesser known is the wild true story involving the creator of the car and cocaine trafficking, and that’s what director Nick Hamm aims to explore in Driven.

The film follows Jim Hoffman (Jason Sudeikis), a pilot and drug runner who moves to Southern California with his wife (Judy Greer) and kids, and becomes neighbours with John DeLoreon (Lee Pace), a former General Motors guy who is working on his dream project – a futuristic winged car bearing his name. When he needs help financing the production, and gets involved in the drug business through Jim’s shady associates, DeLorean gets inadvertently involved in a scheme to take him down when Jim is hired by FBI Special Agent Benedict Tisa (Corey Stoll) to become an informant for the bureau.

This is a largely comedic film that feels a bit lightweight, and it doesn’t reach the heights of something like American Hustle or The Wolf of Wall Street which it clearly tries to emulate. I also wanted to see more about the DeLorean itself, and a mention of Back to the Future would have been nice. But Driven is still a fun romp that is carried by a trio of strong and eminently watchable performances from Jason Sudeikis, Lee Pace and Corey Stoll.