This is Your Hell, and I'm the Demon That Crawled Up Out of It!
A Review by Ben Hunter
3½ Out of 5 Stars
Thank you Dwayne Johnson for redeeming yourself! "The Rock", my high school hero was the kick-ass, action star of this movie, the side of Dwayne that we all 1st viewed him as.
"Faster" is not a high concept, going for best picture at the oscars, type of film. So I didn't let some things REALLY get to me as I would had it been a movie of "substance" like some would say this isn't. On the contrary, I enjoyed it and would disagree with others that it had no intellect or told a real and intriguing story like that of a best picture category film.
This film really set in with my moral and spiritual compasses though. So I really had to turn on the film critic switch and really analyze the story. It left me thinking, "well now he's a fugitive and on the run for the rest of his life", like I did leaving "The Town". But this was different. I first thought that, but then I also started thinking that this film did a good job in making the revenge aspect well known. This being a revenge story, there was a lot of "two-shay" or "yeah he had that coming, so I can see why so and so didn't die or why the police didn't pursue" going on in my head. So I can swallow the police not pursuing Driver and letting his revenge prevail.
When you do a revenge story, the audience must be on the avengers' side and if you can tie in the pursuer (usually the police/law enforcement) and show how they respect the avenger and let his sins go unpunished, well then you've achieved greatness in your craft. Which is what I thought this film accomplished!
Not best picture quality, not dying to see it again, but a good film nonetheless. I wanted to see it in theaters and not wait for DVD because I love a good action film with decent characters and good action sequences. This was more story driven so I could tell the director wasn't solely focused on good action sequences and wanted to tell a good story. A flaw of most action directors, which has given the genre a bad demeanor overall and why arthouse lovers look down on the film as not one of "substance", down with mainstream, yada yada BS!
It felt like the B story was separate throughout the entire film until they finally weaved it all together. Which just kept me wondering what the point of that second story was in the first place and that I needed something more than a fully blossomed Maggie Grace for eye candy. Had there been a clue here and there like the "picture" clue with Moon Bloodgood that first started the weave of stories, I think this film would be that of top notch quality. But it gets a halfway decent review for the entertaining quality that it made me experience.
"Faster" is not a high concept, going for best picture at the oscars, type of film. So I didn't let some things REALLY get to me as I would had it been a movie of "substance" like some would say this isn't. On the contrary, I enjoyed it and would disagree with others that it had no intellect or told a real and intriguing story like that of a best picture category film.
This film really set in with my moral and spiritual compasses though. So I really had to turn on the film critic switch and really analyze the story. It left me thinking, "well now he's a fugitive and on the run for the rest of his life", like I did leaving "The Town". But this was different. I first thought that, but then I also started thinking that this film did a good job in making the revenge aspect well known. This being a revenge story, there was a lot of "two-shay" or "yeah he had that coming, so I can see why so and so didn't die or why the police didn't pursue" going on in my head. So I can swallow the police not pursuing Driver and letting his revenge prevail.
When you do a revenge story, the audience must be on the avengers' side and if you can tie in the pursuer (usually the police/law enforcement) and show how they respect the avenger and let his sins go unpunished, well then you've achieved greatness in your craft. Which is what I thought this film accomplished!
Not best picture quality, not dying to see it again, but a good film nonetheless. I wanted to see it in theaters and not wait for DVD because I love a good action film with decent characters and good action sequences. This was more story driven so I could tell the director wasn't solely focused on good action sequences and wanted to tell a good story. A flaw of most action directors, which has given the genre a bad demeanor overall and why arthouse lovers look down on the film as not one of "substance", down with mainstream, yada yada BS!
It felt like the B story was separate throughout the entire film until they finally weaved it all together. Which just kept me wondering what the point of that second story was in the first place and that I needed something more than a fully blossomed Maggie Grace for eye candy. Had there been a clue here and there like the "picture" clue with Moon Bloodgood that first started the weave of stories, I think this film would be that of top notch quality. But it gets a halfway decent review for the entertaining quality that it made me experience.
Faster
Crime, 98 Minutes, R
Written by: Tony & Joe Gayton
Directed by: George Tillman Jr.
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Billy Bob Thorton, Carla Gugino, and Maggie Grace
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