Faster (2010)

Written by Tony & Joe Gayton
Directed by George Tillman Jr

I've always believed that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has awesome potential to be a major movie star. While he might not quite be there yet (he's made the money required more than once, just no critical success yet) movies like Faster aren't going to help him move to that next level.

However, if he's comfortable and happy playing a few kids movies a year, and then a few brainless action films, and doesn't aspire to any thing more, than Faster is the perfect action reel to have. If you want to do serious acting, it's the kind of thing you buy all the copies of and never show anyone.

From the opening, with the awesome "Goodbye My Friend" by the DeAngelis brothers (originally from Enzo Castellari's film "Street Law", one of my favorites in Italian crime) you know it's going to be a raw homage to exploitation films, and with the concept at hand, they do a damn fine job.

As Driver (Dwayne Johnson) paces in his cell, like a caged animal, he never stops moving throughout the entire film, after being released from prison, he runs to his stashed car, immediately gunning the engine on the Chevelle you get the sense that this film won't let up.

With the opening violence, Driver defies everything the audience thinks he will do, as the puzzle of the plot slowly pieces together with each person he hunts down. Of course there's a wrench in there somewhere, which comes via Billy Bob Thorton's wily cop, and a mysterious hitman from an unknown source.

It seems as though Tillman Jr set out to memorialize every 70's action film he ever saw, that much is obvious, but his trouble comes in the form of knowing when to milk the formula, and when to propel the actual plot to something more than its predecessors.

All too often this happens in exploitation homages, the directors get so tied up in making the film feel authentic, they forget to make sure it's actually good, and not incredibly boring, which the pratfall many of those old low budget films fell into. At the same time, sometimes the flashiness reminds you that this is indeed a $24 million film. This is where expectations come into play, which is the one thing small time, low budget films didn't have to combat in the 70's, because most often their audiences hadn't heard of the films being played.

Modern exploitation cinema has to balance all theses caveats by telling an interesting, self-referential story that pays proper homage to the films of the genre without being boring or blatantly ripping off famous scenes. It's a delicate balance that Tillman Jr manages in most aspects of the movie.

The action is all superbly shot, fancy car rigs, vehicles, helicopters and fancy cameras is where this production spent the bulk of their money, but it pays off with exciting car chases, entertaining explosions, and clearly understandable shoot-outs.

The biggest failure for the film was the character of The Cop (Thornton), who is close to retirement, and despite being a washed up, down on his luck loser drunk, find the will power to track down Driver and stop him from his campaign of revenge. However, nothing about the performance, the character, or the script ever led anyone to believe this character would ever have this epiphany in the way he does, and I believe the character was purposely left this way as an attempt at an homage to 70's cop films with lazy, drunk, or crooked cops.

However, it comes off as just that, a caricature, which doesn't work. Where Dwayne Johnson plays the Charles Bronson anger with serious fervor, Thornton plays it with a winking nod. Depending on the film, neither approach would be wrong, but in the same film, the two approaches clash and make the story feel generic and weak.

Overall, the entertainment factor wins out on this one, it's purely 90 minutes of action and bare bones story, with too many predictable third act happenings to make it anything more than a fun action flick. The exploitation homages that work are fun and vibrant, the ones that don't feel generic and stale. This imbalance throughout the movie will keep it from being a huge cult classic, but it further cements Dwayne Johnson as a screen bad ass that can be physical for the length of an entire film shoot. If you saw the trailer for this film and you were looking for something other than that, you might need to learn a bit more about movies.

8.8/10