Review: Faster

Grade: B-

An ex-con has been waiting to be released from prison for ten years. When the day finally comes, he has one goal in mind, revenge. As soon as he leaves the prison walls, he sets out to hunt down those who killed his brother over ten years ago and makes his first kill within a couple of hours of his release. As he drives around town in his classic Chevrolet Chevelle, seeking out the people that killed his brother, he begins to uncover a bigger mystery. During his campaign, however, he is being tracked down by a veteran cop and an egomaniacal hitman.

Faster started out strong and was a fun grindhouse-eque movie (Tarantino could take some notes) showing “Driver” getting out of jail with pure intensity and revenge in his eyes, but kind of loses its way about halfway through. This movie doesn’t have much in terms of plot, but it didn’t really need to. It seemed to be inspired by grindhouse movies of the 70’s, which is evident in the soundtrack as well, so it was supposed to be nothing but action and violence. This is the movie that Death Proof should have been. The beginning of the movie is awesome and intense, keeping you on the edge of your seat, but then you the movie starts shoving “Cop”s family down your throat, still don’t know if they were trying to make him sympathetic or not, as well as kind of doing the same with “Killer”, the assassin hired to kill Driver. However, despite the awkward middle parts, the movie does finish strong. One of the interesting things about this movie is you never really find out the names of most of the main characters.

Dwayne Johnson (Race to Witch Mountain, Southland Tales) plays the lead role of Driver. I was so happy to see Dwayne Johnson finally drop the kid movie stuff he had been doing for a while and get back to raw action. He did not disappoint, this is the Dwayne Johnson I fully enjoy in movies. His character was very intense and terrifying and he pulled it off, and you never find out his real name. Billy Bob Thornton (The Informers, The Astronaut Farmer) plays Cop. I like him but he seemed to be kind of phoning in his performance in this movie. It was still an enjoyable performance but it just wasn’t great. Relative new comer Oliver Jackson-Cohen plays Killer, an egotistical hitman. This Jake Gyllenhaal look-a-like was fun to watch in this movie and really pulled the role off well. The movie also features Carla Gugino, Tom Berenger, Mike Epps, Maggie Grace and Moon Bloodgood.

Faster is a fun and action packed revenge movie that is great to see when you’re out with some friends. So if you are into these kinds of movies, then you will probably enjoy it, if you don’t like movies that are based almost solely on revenge, you probably won’t like this. It’s not the best revenge movie I’ve ever seen but it is pretty fun to watch.