Faster [2010]

[This review is rated R for salty language]


The Rock gets out of jail – and starts going after the fuckers who killed his brother and put him in jail.


This film doesn’t fuck around. I LOVE THAT! We don’t need comedy – we don’t need romance – we need to see this character do what he sets out to do. He needs to be an unmovable/unstoppable object of destruction of anything in his path. Give him a gun – a muscle car – point him in a direction and let him go!


The film was pitch perfect – The Rock was a hulking beast of a revenge machine – no real acting needed – just a monster of a man going forth. Billy Bob Thornton is always interesting when given quirky strange characters to play – and his wily drug addled detective on the case was pretty good. They play a sort of cat & mouse game – unbeknownst to The Rock – which I really liked.


This wouldn’t be much of a review if I just heap praise on a no-brainer of a film like this – so let me get to what always seems to derail these kind of films; the secondary characters - namely the assassin that’s hired to stop The Rock. Ultimately – there’s nothing wrong with the character – he’s a finesse killer and respects that The Rock is a pure killing machine – but he’s just unnecessary as a character especially once you consider the film after viewing it completely. He detracts more than he adds and takes the focus off the two far more interesting characters who are playing their cat & mouse game – which is just annoying. He can be viewed as the outside set of eyes – but if that was his purpose – then they should’ve dropped his plot points which were all one way dead end streets.


The last part of the film did seem to slow down a bit as it got to the film’s ultimate conclusion – but it built up a lot of good faith in me by delivering so much in the parts proceeding that I for one could care less about the slowdown.


This film is a revenge based exploitation film that makes me miss pure action films – and not films based on franchises, comic books and children toys. This is an action film for adults who love action films – it doesn’t fuck around with the whole “let’s try and pull in a wider audience by making it PG-13 – then release the Unrated DVD/Blu-Ray” – it’s a hard R from start to finish – the way real action films should be.


I really respect DeWayne “The Rock” Johnson for taking on a film like this – I know he wants to put more of himself out there with family friendly stuff and more complex roles where he has dialogue and character development – but what’s the point of being built like a mountain and NOT play a motherfucking badass?!?!?


The film wasn’t perfect – it was great – and it tickled all the right parts of my mind that just loves watching a kick ass action film. It makes me want to eat a raw steak while drinking out of a creek and carry around my giant stick for hitting things – 5 out of 5 (really more of a 4 out of 5 – but why not the extra bump?)