Based on the popular video game franchise, Need for Speed follows the story of
Tobey Marshall (Aaron Paul) as he seeks revenge after a fellow driver causes
his friend to crash and leaves him to die in flames by the roadside. Along the
way he enlists the help of his crew of mechanics and the daughter of a British
car dealer Julia (Imogen Poots) to help clear his name and ensure that his
nemesis Dino (Dominic Cooper) is brought to justice.
The film is a fairly mixed bag to say the least. There’s a
moment very early on in which a
character says ‘You know I just came up with that, right now?’, and this is
indicative of the movie in general. There are several set pieces that seem to
have been drawn out of thin air, added entirely to either pad out the run time
or to pull in an audience eager for more. Whatever the reason, the action
sequences are carried out with a great deal of finesse and are perhaps the
film’s greatest strength. They harken back to a time when action movies prided themselves
on doing dangerous stunts for real, and there is homage paid to Bullit and Speed, both in one of the out-of-nowhere driving sequences and in a
short drive-in scene.
The real stunts, combined with clever use of varying camera
types and angles plus a full-blooded, pounding score by Nathan Furst (a newcomer
for me, but someone I’ll be keeping an eye on) ensure that there are several
moments where you worry that vehicles and people are genuinely being badly
broken. There is also a lot to be said for Aaron Paul, now fresh out of his
magnificent run in Breaking Bad, who
takes a slightly flimsy script and manages to pull off a very fine performance.
Imogen poots does the best she can with what she’s given,
though since her appearance in last year’s Filth
she has taken a step backwards, performance wise. The cinematography is
handled with a certain degree of panache, though the retro-fitted 3D adds little
to the film, and is unable to save the mostly one-dimensional delivery of lines
by the supporting cast, one of whom swings from simply annoying to a little
misogynistic, the others (including a previous offender of Michael Bay’s oeuvre)
simply feeling like screen filler.
Need for Speed is
a perfectly fine action movie that sets out with good intentions, has a
troubled first half, but pulls it all together before the end, and I’d be lying
if I said I hadn’t enjoyed myself. Let’s just hope they don’t ruin the goodwill
with a sequel.
3 Stars
3 Stars
