Faster

Faster
Starring:
Dwayne Johnson
Billy Bob Thorton

Introduction
For having a fairly simple plot, the movie works quite well for what it is. I was surprised by the cinematography in the movie and that despite some of its cliche techniques in the story, you are left until pretty much the end wondering what is actually going to happen next.

Acting
The acting in this is (like everything else in this movie) straight to the point, next to no deviation and always consistent. This movie sets out with a singular plot and each character is a sort of representation, so much so that most of the characters don’t even have actual names. For instance, Johnson’s character is only referred to as “Driver” at the beginning and he is never actually called by name ever in the film. The same goes for Thorton’s character who is simple “Cop” and sometimes referred to as “Detective” by his colleagues.
Dwayne Johnson is the focus of the movie, someone who is let of prison, is tough as nails and has only one purpose - to have vengeance on those who killed his brother. Johnson barely even talks in the movie, his lines probably able to be counted on your fingers. However, he does portray his character quite well. There is some depth to the character which is only alluded to every once in a while until part way through the film showing us what his motive is. His character is extremely to the point, he only has one purpose in life and that is all that you get from this character. However, he is forced to make some decisions along the way and there is an inner conflict beneath the muscle and anger and even some good, some justice, so it’s played fairly interestingly.

Billy Bob Thorton is a crack addict cop who is ten days from retirement and is assigned to track down “Driver”. Unfortunately, it’s a fairly empty character and only really starts having any depth in the last quarter of the movie. There isn’t a whole lot to connect to, other than he has a failed marriage and has a son who can’t play baseball. Though there are a few redeeming scenes in which Thorton is able to act some and there is that sad realization within himself of certain things.

There are several other characters including Carla Gugino who is a cop as well. This character has absolutely no depth and is just a cop putting together the pieces. Not much to go by for an actor. Another character, the “Killer” played by Oliver Jackson-Cohen, is hired to kill “Driver” by an anonymous employer. This character has probably the most background, having allusions to him being somewhat crippled as a child, yet striving to overcome all challenges. However, this makes him a pretty boring character and the acting is very flat on Cohen’s part. He really seems like he’s just acting and never plays with these different background traits and motives.

Cinematography
This movie really plays with the lighting, camera angles and sizes and is actually quite impressive. The visual play makes up for the lack of depth in the story and characters with a lot of visual references to driving. Some clever angles including an overhead pan of a car where the yellow dividing line on the road acts like a speedometer as the camera pans around, making the line appear to move up in a left to right motion. The lighting again is very well done including the last few shots which make them somewhat memorable simply because of the way they’re lit. If anything, the camera tells more story than the actual story does in this movie as it goes through showing a change of sorts in “Driver” with some almost religious undertones about redemption and forgiveness.
The soundtrack was composed by none other than Clint Mansell and as always is a great soundtrack to listen to. The soundtrack has an excellent choice of existing songs and it’s own music, lending a hand to the visuals in telling the story and helping to define the characters, making up for some of the lack of depth in them.
Editing overall was fairly standard and not much for CGI was needed or used in this film, which is a refreshing change from the constant onslaught of fake graphics to make films “visually stunning.” Though a standard editing job, timing was thought out fairly well and things work in the order that they are spliced together, with fairly successful flashbacks to help make us understand the story, but not know it until the end.

Story
As I stated earlier, the story is very simple, but a lot of times a complex story ruins a movie, especially one like this. Many story writers today don’t have a concept of the core story, of beginning, middle, end and therefore get lost in this twisted and confusing maze of riddles and plot devices that end up making the film inconsistent. Where this movie has a very simple plot (man is let out of prison after 10 years and immediately goes to have vengeance on those who killed his brother) you don’t get lost in this twisted maze of irrelevancy. There are only really a few instances of the plot that were completely unnecessary to the movie and could have gone without. There is half decent anticipation where it is more than just about a man killing other people for revenge and the build up to each mini-climax is well done and then the final climax is good as well. There is some unbelievability to the movie, namely in the form of “Driver” and it makes you wonder if there is some sort of unseen fantastical element, especially with the religious undertones to it, but they are never brought up and simply makes it a movie where you have to suspend your disbelief for a short instant so that the plot can continue.
The film does have some twist and turns, nothing rivaling Hitchcock or anything, but enough to keep you guessing until the last portion of the movie. Surprisingly, by the time we reach the end, some meaning has been gleaned from some of the undertones of the film, including some messages of redemption (though no where near on the scale of Shawshank Redemption) but more than your typical vengeance driven action film.

Conclusion
Overall a half decent action film which is better than most of the dribble produced. Though nothing exceptional and if you come into it with low or uncertain expectations, you may find it mildly surprising that there is some quality to the film and is worth a watch at some point in time.

5.5/10

nice review, i probably won't be seeing this.

and notice how they don't call Dwayne Johnson "The Rock" anymore. He just isn't.

Well, there's no need, everyone now knows who the Rock is/was. And like I said, it was surprisingly good, better than I expected, though it was kinda full of type casting