Action, Revenge, Even A Bit of Mystery
Faster is a very good movie. I was expecting something along the lines of The Rundown or Walking Tall, but Faster has a stronger story than those two. Dwayne Johnson plays the unnamed character simply known as Driver. At the outset of the movie he is being released from prison after serving ten years for his role in a bank robbery in a small California town. He can’t wait to get out of jail. He is eager to exact revenge on another heist crew that killed his crew, which included brutally murdering his own brother in front of his eyes.
The ninety-eight minute romp is completely centered around this revenge story that has Driver locating four or five people and killing them. But, things are a bit more interesting than just that, thankfully. While Driver’s character is pretty straight-forward, the characters of Jackson-Cohen and Billy Bob are anything but. Oliver Jackson-Cohen stars as Killer (yes, another unnamed character) who has a weird case of OCD in which he constantly competes at everything and it seems like he is seeking some kind of approval that he never had at a younger age. He is a trained killer and is hired soon after Driver’s rampage begins. Killer decides to take on this job, one that he promises Lily (Maggie Grace), his love interest, will be his last.
Meanwhile, Billy Bob Thornton, known as Cop, is a washed up policeman addicted to drugs and nicotine who is on his last few days before retiring. He joins Carla Gugino’s character, Cicero, in trying to locate and stop Driver. Cop’s life is made more interesting with the introduction of his former wife, a confidential informant that Cop used to rely on who is also addicted to drugs. They also have a son who helps bring in a small amount of comic relief.
It’s clear that the script was written with characters and some mystery in mind and I thought it worked really well. I was entertained from start to finish and very surprised at some of the plot twists that shaped characters and relationships in ways I was not expecting. The action involves lots of hard driving and some handgun firefights, and these are also done well. You certainly have to suspend disbelief at times and just take the action for what it’s presented as, but this is a film starring The Rock after all so that shouldn’t be surprising. That said, the action compliments the drama nicely and it never runs on for too long, either.
Faster On Blu-ray
The Blu-ray release of Faster is great. The image quality is very crisp and vibrant and suffers no technical flaws that I could see. The sound quality is similarly powerful and balances dialogue with heavy action very nicely. Several extra features are included as well; they are:
-Alternate Ending (13m, HD) – This is actually the original ending, but the ending was changed after the film was shown to small focus groups. The final cut ending that you seen in the film is far better, so I’m happy that the director decided to make the change.
-Deleted Scenes (8m, HD) – Five deleted scenes in HD are included, most with optional director introductions.
-“Criminals And Cops: The Cast of Faster” (12m, HD) – A typical ‘making of’ or behind the scenes feature with cast and crew interviews as well as footage taken during production.
-“Weapons And Wheels: The Guns, Cars, And Stunts of Faster” (12m, HD) – A cool feature with more cast and crew interviews and production footage, focusing on exactly what the feature name suggests: the guns, cars, and stunts.
-Animatics (12m, HD) – Yet another twelve minute HD feature. This one has several rough animated sequences of scenes that take place in the movie.
-MovieIQ – With an internet connected player, you can enable this feature to view various facts and miscellaneous information about the film and the cast and crew.
Not a bad collection of extras; it’s definitely nice they’re all in HD and they are all interesting, too.