FASTER

Cole's Rating: C-
Thatcher's Rating: C

Year: 2010

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Billy Bob Thornton

Genre: Action/Crime/Drama

MPAA Rating: R

      ATTENTION all film producers: you cannot whip up a action filled, muscle packed movie like Faster and expect to get a good revenge movie such as a film like Kill Bill. There is much more to it than having Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, whom on the other hand I have grown very fond of recently due to his performance in Snitch, shooting people up and being fearless in all circumstances. It requires a deeper level of thinking, not just action. Not to mention how ridiculous the action scenes were anyway. If I want to pay half attention, multi-task, be slightly entertained, and come away with absolutely nothing that I had before watching the movie except disappointment, then I will indulge myself in a movie like Faster. 

      With that said, I will briefly dive into the plot, similar to how the film did. Dwayne Johnson plays ‘driver’, who spends the entire movie hunting people down that killed his brother and gang, before his gang was turned into the police. Billy Bob Thornton, who I particularly enjoy seeing in film, my personal favorite of his performances being the 2005 remake of Bad News Bears (not the movie itself, but his performance) played ‘cop’, the cop who was in charge of catching ‘driver’ while on his killing spree, which he’s never able to do. Hm. I wonder why. Maybe it’s because he’s trying to catch a guy as big as ‘The Rock’, especially with his ridiculously muscular physical state in the movie. Nobody can stop him, not even a bullet to the head! As he admits in the movie, “God can’t save you from me.” Well, we sure found that out as an audience. And there’s someone else after ‘driver’ too. And his name is ‘killer’ (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). He is a trained killer, taking orders from somebody we were not aware of in the movie until the end. But even though they had a few scenes where ‘killer’ and ‘driver’ had an open shot at each other, neither one of them gets hit despite their obvious skill and accuracy with weapons, and scenes displaying their precision and expertise. Of course not.

     Character motivation was another serious problem in the film. You’ll understand why I say this when you watch the movie’s ending and realize that they were simply trying to make up for the lack of originality and existence of thought and contemplation on the film in the previous hour and twenty minutes with the several attempts that were made to awe the audience with Thornton’s character, that were ineffective. Another line from the movie that should not have been in the film, took place when ‘driver’ visits his ‘girl’ and his child. She spends the entire time he is there yelling at him, claiming “Why are you here? There is nothing here for you!”. Then no less then a minute later, while he is walking out of the door, she encourages him by screaming “I hope you kill them all!”. 
      
      Did I like this movie? No. But I’m one of millions of critics and opinions out there, and I’m sure we all don’t share the same viewpoint. Somebody who is a Dwayne Johnson action junkie may love the film. But I could recommend much better ones, in the same category also, seeing that this film’s idea is one of the most unoriginal you can find.

Written by Cole Pollyea