All the dodgy wigs, loud shirts and flared trousers in the world can’t distract from just how ropey this movie about the American car designer John DeLorean is – famous for manufacturing the gull-winged sports car that takes centre stage as Marty McFly’s ride in ‘Back to the Future’. It takes as its hook DeLorean’s 1982 arrest and trial for cocaine trafficking, and gives us his cheery neighbour Jim Hoffman (Jason Sudeikis) – an FBI informant who turned DeLorean over to the feds – as our smiling guide to this world. Sudeikis plays Hoffman as an overly friendly, bumbling everyman, while Lee Pace gives us a paper-thin portrayal of DeLorean in a performance which amounts to little more than a staccato drawl and a habit of staring off into the middle distance like a guru.
You can see the attraction of this story: the pool parties, the glamour, the betrayal. But the tone of ‘Driven’ is wildly off, hovering somewhere between comedy and thriller. It tells us next to nothing about DeLorean and relegates the story of his failed car to the odd clip seen on TV in the background, preferring to stick with the uninteresting friendship between him and Hoffman. And it just can’t be overstated how terrible the wigs and clothes are. It’s like someone got hold of all the wardrobe rejects from ‘Boogie Nights’ and built a movie around them. It takes all the will in the world not to imagine jumping into a scene and ‘accidentally’ knocking all the precarious-looking hairpieces off the actors’ heads.
