Film Reviews

Faster

• Rating:
• Director: George Tillman Jr.
• Starring: Billy Bob Thornton
• Details: US/97mins 16

The Artist Formally Known as The Rock moves away from the kiddie crap, with a straight up action film. Unsurprisingly given its title, Faster is a very simple story told with abrasive style and Dwayne Johnson uses every inch of his imposing physicality in its central role. It's a little too earnest, with a completely useless subplot and sloppy scripting, but for the most part it's a solid watch.
Johnson is introduced to us as "Driver," just as he's being released from the joint after a long stretch. The second he gets outside the gates of jail he starts running towards his stashed American muscle car, then promptly makes his way to an office and blows some dude's head off. We're then introduced to a phoning-it-in Billy Bob Thornton playing the washed up "Cop," and Jackson-Cohen's perplexing character, "Killer." You get what I mean by simple now?
Regardless of the quality of the production, it's great to see Johnson back kicking ass on screen. The man was born to be an action star; someone of his charismatic wattage being forced to wear a tutu and such in high concept kids films is depressing. He has very little dialogue here, and spends most of the film either killing people, or on his way to kill people. The hook of the film seems to be that he shoots the aforementioned wrong sorts with a cool gun, and drives to wherever they are to shoot them in a cool car. Strangely, that's not the issue with Faster, as that's the film we're sold from the start.
Trying-to-be-clever scripting, a time-consuming and pointless subplot and an overly ponderous conclusion is where it goes astray. Jackson-Cohen plays a character from a completely different film, with his own romantic subplot - helmer Tillman Jr gives us his backstory by panning past pictures on a wall as he does extreme yoga. "I beat yoga" is an actual line he's forced to utter. Thornton too has a lot going on, but his thread is more inherently related to the plot, even if his character has been in countless other films.
Faster works when it's Johnson, someone who wronged him, and a gun. That side of the movie really moves, and one of his final targets offers a strangely poignant scene. For the most part he's required to look pensive, pissed off and dangerous - but he does get to do some acting at the end.
Hugely enjoyable in parts, and utterly pointless in others.

Review by Mike Sheridan