Speed Limited
After doing a ten year stretch Driver (Dwayne Johnson) is released from prison and is on a mission. That mission involves the botched bank job that he ended up inside for as during the robbery his brother ended up dead and now Driver plans to make every single person responsible for his brother's death suffer. But after hunting down and cold bloodedly killing the first guy on his list Driver comes to the attention of Cop (Billy Bob Thornton) who is due to retire soon but plans to stop Driver before he gets to the end of his list. Meanwhile Driver also finds himself with Killer (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), a smooth operating hitman on his tail.
I honestly don't believe Dwayne Johnson gets the credit as an actor he deserves, okay so he is no Olivier but he can do determined, caring, humorous and often many of those things at the same time. It is the reason, along with his incredible physique, that Johnson is such a bankable star as he can play a variety of roles and bring nuances to them as is the case in "Faster" because at the start we have Johnson as Driver stomping through the prison corridor with a ferocious determination but as the story evolves he introduces subtle nuances to humanize his character. It is one of the stand out aspects of "Faster" and it means that Johnson is not acted off the screen by Billy Bob Thornton who as Cop has a clearer more conflicted character to work with.
Now I hinted at what happens in "Faster" because at the start we have Driver as this determined man who is hell bent on getting revenge but as he goes after each person on his lift he changes and becomes that little bit more human. At the same time we not only have a cop on his trail but a hitman and whilst one of these is for the most a curious addition the other offers up something shall we say a bit more predictable due to the nature of their character. The thing is that what happens in "Faster" is not enough to make it more than just an okay movie with a touch of the 70s about it when it comes to the revenge plot line.
In fairness to director George Tillman Jr. he tries to inject an element of style in to "Faster" with a snappy editing style going on during the first half. For some it will be great as will be the use of tags such as Driver, Cop and Killer rather than names but those tags are gimmicks and the styling doesn't stay consistent through out which adds to that sense of it being a gimmick as well.
What this all boils down to is that "Faster" is certainly an entertaining movie with plenty of style but it isn't anything special with at times the style ending up far too dominant.
