Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
11/28/10
Of
all the professional wrestlers who've ever tried their hand at acting,
some have proven better than others, with Jon Cena, Steve Austin and Roddy
Piper coming to mind as guys who proved to be solid B-movie stars when
used within certain limits. But only Dwayne Johnson, who wrestled
and initially acted as “The Rock” has been able to totally leap over that
top rope and into a long-term full-time career as a genuine actor.
He's worked hard at his craft, and it helps that his massive, muscular
frame is paired with a Prom King's face that brings to mind more a star
athlete than a vicious brawler. The problem for Johnson hasn't been
so much finding work as finding good work: a quick perusal of his
filmography finds supporting roles in some very good movies (Get
Smart and The Mummy Returns among them) but really only 2006's
underrated sports drama Gridiron Gang as a standout leading vehicle.
Johnson's other star vehicles have ranged from OK (the Mummy spin-off
The
Scorpion King and Walking Tall, which I remember thinking was
OK, although damned if I can recall a single detail about it) to dreadful
(the inexplicably popular The Game Plan, which led to an ill-fated
couple years of him muggling shamelessly in family films like The Tooth
Fairy). I'm happy to report then that his latest is one of the
best films he's been associated with: Faster is a lean, mean
B-movie with a brain that ponders the soul-scorching toll of vengeance
while dishing it out with unmatched ferocity. Johnson anchors a very
good cast packed with familiar faces while Tony and Joe Gayton's screenplay
has a lot more luck with the Big Ideas (intriguing) than the Twists (beyond
obvious). Under George Tillman Jr.'s skillful direction, Faster
never stops for breath, but still manages to argue against itself to the
point where you might actually find yourself rooting for the killing to
stop. As pro wrestling star vehicles go, this is no Immortal Combat.
This
is not a movie big on names. The Driver (Dwayne Johnson) is released
after a ten-year prison sentence for his role as the wheel man in an armed
robbery. The moment he's outside the prison walls, he starts running
until he's reached his early 70's Chevelle, lovingly preserved under a
tarp. Driver then pays a visit to Roy (Mike Epps) to cash in on a
ten year-old deal for the current locations of a list of people.
Once he's got those names, he's a guided missile, walking into an office
and blowing The Telemarketer's (Courtney Gaines) brains out. Detective
Cicero (Carla Gugino) investigates, joined by The Cop (Billy Bob Thornton),
who's struggling to put his life and family back together days away from
retirement. Also on The Driver's trail is The Killer (Oliver Jackson-Cohen),
a hired assassin who's considering retirement himself now that he's found
true love with a girl named Lily (Maggie Grace). One after another,
the people on The Driver's list die as Cicero and The Cop puzzle out the
reason for his thirst for revenge. But there's a bigger picture,
a puppet master pulling everyone's strings. Can the Driver, Cop and
Killer veer off their collision courses before it's too late?
From
its opening frame, Faster has mood and atmosphere to burn:
Tillman is aiming for a type of modern noir mood where his characters are
prisoners of their own sinful natures. The script by the Gayton Brothers
(points for not billing yourselves in a cutsey manner, by the way) is intrigued
by all the different things that pull us off the righteous path.
For the Driver, it's a horrible upbringing; the Cop is tormented by drug
addiction; The Killer is mentally ill and off his meds. Family tugs
at all three men, but in different ways. The Driver rages against
what he's lost; the Cop is desperate over what he's losing and the Killer
is flush with the promise of what he could have. All the Driver's
victims know they have a date with death, and you could even read his resistance
to all attempts to kill him as a sign that his vengeful crusade has sanction
from on high. But he's also affected by the words of the Evangelist
(Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) he listens to on the radio as he travels the
countryside and speaks by phone with the son of one of his victims.
The Driver isn't a bad guy per se: he doesn't hurt anyone who wasn't
part of the crime against him ten years before, but for those who WERE
involved, his prejudice is so extreme that it basically knows no bounds.
I'm hard-pressed to think of the last time I saw a movie's hero walk into
a hospital room and empty his gun into the guy on the operating table.
Wow.
Faster
is more of a reflection upon its themes than a statement about them, as
I'd be hard-pressed to say what the Killer's throughline has to say about
the Driver's and vice-versa. In some ways, this is like a homicidal
Robert Altman movie. But the characters are all intriguing, and their
journeys surprisingly engaging. There are two moments near the end
of the movie where I hoped with all my might that someone wouldn't pull
the trigger and instead would think of the how the death of one person
would impact others. There are two “surprises” in the last 10 minutes,
one of which genuinely puts a new spin on one of the characters and the
other being so obvious almost from the movie's opening moments that I took
it into account the whole time. Your chances of surviving if you're
on The Driver's list are better than your chances of not guessing this
secret before it's revealed. Seriously.
But
even when it's not as clever as it wishes it were, Faster is quite
enjoyable, in large part because of how good its large and diverse cast
is. Johnson is a Rock in this role, an icon of pure single-minded
rage. But he's also very good in the scenes where the Driver has
to question what he's doing, and a flashback scene that shows him to have
been an entirely different kind of man before prison is very well played.
Thornton has built his career on being both cocky and a wreck at the same
time, and the Cop is right in his wheelhouse, as is Gugino's role as his
reluctant partner. I'd never seen Jackson-Cohen before, but
he's quite delightful in a role that couldn't be more different than Johnson's.
And two old favorites from the beloved TV show Lost have solid supporting
roles. Grace always excels as characters whose charm and vulnerability
motivate other people, and you can really see how she falls for the Killer
because he's a bad boy but then starts to guide him toward a better life
without even realizing it. And Akinnuoye-Agbaje has a true barn-burner
of a scene with Johnson toward the end where one can feel a man's very
soul in the balance. Another TV favorite, Dexter's Jennifer
Carpenter, shows up for a single scene as “The Woman” (yeah, it's that
kind of movie) and leaves it all on the table as she's been known to do.
Those
who just showed up for the driving and the killing might find Faster
to be a tad artsier than they'd prefer, but those with a taste for the
driving, the killing, and the philosophizing will definitely like what
they see. And fans of Dwayne Johnson should eat up a rare opportunity
to see him headline a movie as good as he is while they continue trying
to puzzle out just what the heck Southland Tales was all about. |
