Need for Speed (*½)
Directed
by: Scott Waugh
Starring:
Aaron Paul, Dominic Cooper, Imogen Poots, Scot Mescudi, Ramón Rodríguez, Rami
Malek, Michael Keaton, Dakota Johnson, Harrison Gilbertson
Seen:
March 22nd 2014
*½
Out of ****
Director
Scott Waugh took great care while making Need for Speed to exclude anything
that cannot actually be done with the cars – what you see being done is exactly
real, there is (apparently) no special effects regarding stunts with cars, and I
have to say the exotic cars and fast paced races are exhilarating. But I am
disappointed that no such care, nowhere close to such care, was given to
actually making the characters and their dialogue anywhere in the vicinity of believable.
I saw a one-line review for this movie from Funny or Die that cannot be more
apt in describing this movie: “Aaron Paul drives a souped-up street racer in
the exact opposite direction of his Breaking Bad credibility.”
Tobey
Marshall (Paul) owns a New York garage where he and his friends work on cars
with a very slim financial margin. They don’t know how slim, and when Tobey
takes a job offered them by Dino Brewster (Cooper) without a thought, he must
explain that the job (souping up a rare Shelby Mustang) will save the garage.
They complete the job, but before payment happens, they wager it all on a race
with three identical supercars. Tobey, Dino, and Tobey’s green friend Little Pete
(Gilbertson) race, but when Dino is about to lose he nudges Pete’s car, which
kills Pete, to get ahead when Tobey stops in shock. Dino manages to get away
and frame Tobey, who is sent to prison.
Two
years later, when Tobey is released, he sets his sights on avenging Pete. He
approaches the owner of the Shelby Mustang to borrow the car to enter a secret race,
the De Leon, arranged by a radio disc jockey Monarch (Keaton), where he will
compete against Dino, a previous winner. He has to cross the country in 48
hours to enter, and he has the car’s caretaker, Julia (Poots) with him all the
way. Dino tries to stop him by offering his Lamborghini as a prize for those
who can stop him – which produces probably the only enjoyable sequence in the
movie, as rednecks with beach buggies try to stop them and they barely escape.
They get there in time, and the cars set of for what seems cool, but what would
have been more fun in the game itself with a controller in hand.
Aaron
Paul broods like he did so excellently in Breaking Bad, but it doesn’t transfer
to this movie, he needs to relax a bit, even though his character is so
obviously distressed. Imogen Poots must be ashamed of the dialogue she was
given, in fact, every actor in this movie should be. But none so much however
as Michael Keaton, who in recent movies has played really dumb characters in my
humble opinion – he is getting to become a red light – if he is in a movie, it
don’t know if I want to see it…
This
isn’t merely a bad movie, it’s terrible, and no amount of cool cars or insane
races can fix it. It’s full of strange occurrences that come either from
nowhere, or are teased but not delivered on. For instance: a school bus with kids
is shown with dramatic music during a race with the cars headed its way; no
worries, they fly by the bus in less than a second, all the racing cars, almost
instantly. Another: After meeting the villain in a hotel for 5 seconds the good
guys drive onto the street and are instantly hit by a truck that must have been
accelerating for a good half-mile – from where was this truck summoned, and how
is its timing so right? But I digress; a suspension of disbelief is required
when watching movies like these. It does however not survive some of the
dialogue clunkers thrown around as plot points, it truly annoys me that anyone
would attempt passing this as believable. The writers probably decided that the
games have enough plot and story for them to sit back and collect their
pay-checks, nothing more was needed. Oh, how it was needed. Need for Speed is
awful.
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