Faster
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| WARNING: This review may contain spoilers. |
It seems today that fast cars and violence are all it takes to supposedly make for a good mixture when it comes to crime and revenge films. Of course, among this list is the film Faster, though the car part isn't really much outside of just eye candy. This star-studded feature brings together The Rock (Dwayne Johnson), Billy Bob Thornton, and many others to tell the tale of a man out for blood in the name of his brothers, but does this fast pace on-rails flick prove to be another enjoyable entry in the out-for-blood style of story telling?
Well, Faster is definitely a rather simple film. The concept is that the man known only as the Driver (Dwayne Johnson), has just been released from jail. Immediately, he retrieves his car and begins to seek out various people related to the death of his brother, a plot point that comes up a little after the first killing. This causes the Cop (Billy Bob Thornton) and his partner Cicero (Carla Gugino) to chase after him, while the Killer (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) is hired to take him down. At the same time, the Killer is struggling between his professional and personal lives, having fallen for Lily (Maggie Grace), eventually proposing to her and swearing he would give up his professional life for her. That is literally the story, and it doesn't get much deeper than that, nor do the characters.
When it comes to Action films, there usually isn't much complexity to them overall. However, with this one, it just doesn't end up working out in favor of the movie. The characters end up being rather shallow and have very little to no character development outside of some subtle hints. The Driver's story is told pretty quickly through video taped footage by a group of killers as they rob him and his brother of money from a heist that is shown prior, showcasing the Driver's skills during a getaway. The death of his brother is easy to predict, even after the Driver complies. Both end up dead, but the drive he had to avenge his brother's death, as well as his own, brings him back to life despite being dead on arrival to find everyone involved. The others show very little development. The first death is nothing more than walking in on him at work while on the phone and blowing his brains out, another death scene involving a dying wish to call his son and tell he's sorry, and another one of the killers having converted to a revival church priest, showing remorse and going into explanation of his role in all of it.
Of all additional characters in the film, the only other one to get some character development is the Cop. There's a nice side story involved with this character, such as a drug addiction and his history of being involved with a rough group of police officers back in the day. While trying to solve this case and bring the Driver to justice, he also has to handle the divorce from his wife, who also is revealed to be a drug addict later on, as well as being a better part of his song's life, such as putting the case on hold for a little while to take him to his baseball game. He also plays an important role in the twist ending of the movie. Not even the Driver gets this sort of back story, though what is told about him eventually foreshadows the end of the movie.
As far as everything else goes, the acting to Faster really isn't all that impressive. Many of the people who the Driver tracks down just aren't the most impressive on-screen, and none of them feel intimidating when they try to be. Most of them do try to capture an acceptance that they are going to die, confused that the Driver is actually not dead. Even Dwayne Johnson isn't too impressive here. Yes the restrained rage and vendetta can be see in it, but the whole character is just boring, never intimidating in his quest to kill the ones who killed him and his brother. Honestly, the only good actor is Billy Bob Thornton, and even that has its limitations, again being very restrained, though a lot more fluid and believable than anyone else in the cast. Of course the Killer does have a little extra to his story thanks to the additional phone conversations with his psychiatrist, or who we're led to believe is one. There's no explanation as to who that person is, or anything else about the character, leaving him an additional third character in all this that didn't do anything for the film, nor would it have affected it if he were written out at some point.
Faster just moves from point a to point b and on. While the movie really isn't too bad, it comes off as your typical Action revenge film. The characters are boring and subject to little development, which only hurts the film since all the people the Driver is out to kill you really couldn't care any less about really. Even the main characters leave you just sitting there waiting for someone else to die, whether in a short fight sequence or just getting shot square in the skull seconds after they confront each other. There's plenty of other great revenge films out there, and what few car chase scenes there are, the death scenes, and lack of development happen to be here, you can't help but feel this was a rushed effort. Faster is a basic film for its style, and while it's not bad, it's also not that good, either.
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