Director: George Tillman Jr. (Notorious, Men of Honor, Soulfood)
Screenplay: Tony Gayton & Joe Gayton
Producers: Tony Gayton, Liz Glotzer, Martin Shafer, Robert Teitel
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Billy Bob Thornton, Carla Gugino, Maggie Grace, Moon Bloodgood, Jennifer Carpenter, Tom Berenger
MPAA Rating: R
Running time: 98 min.

(2/5)

I like Dwayne Johnson the action star but his turn in a number family films in the last few years hasn’t appealed to me and I’ve been patiently waiting for his re-emergence as the action hero. The release of Faster last November marked his return as action star but the film came among a wide assortment of other, more dramatic stuff and it came and went before I had a chance to see Johnson kick butt (or in this case, shoot people) but with the film’s appearance on DVD this week, the time came to finally catch up with the picture and the only thing I’m really thankful for is that I didn’t spend $12 to see it.

It’s not that Faster is completely awful but it’s a pretty bland tale of revenge. The film opens with Johnson as he’s being released from prison. We don’t know what he’s been in for (yet) but as soon as he gets out, he’s on the hunt. We later find out that he was the driver for his brother during a robbery that ended badly when a rival gang came into their hideout, killed everyone (or so they thought), and took the cash. Johnson is now out and seeking revenge for the guys that killed his brother in cold blood. While he’s driving from place to place killing these guys, the mastermind responsible for killing Johnson’s crew hires a professional to dispense of Johnson but the killer has trouble and the next thing you know Johnson is being tracked by the killer as well as a pair of cops investigating the apparently unrelated murders.

You may have noticed that in that entire paragraph made no mention of any character names. Turns out writers Tony and Joe Gayton didn’t think these characters deserved any and the film’s main male characters all lack names. We simply know Johnson as “Driver,” Oliver Jackson-Cohen who plays the hired gun as “Killer” and Billy Bob Thornton, one half of the police duo, as “Cop.” I’m not sure what the point of this is but it’s kind of lame.

The film itself isn’t any better and as much as I like that the central character we’re supposed to connect with is a bad guy, the project as a whole is a disappointing, mostly bland tale of a guy driving around shooting people. He’s uninteresting, the characters he encounters are largely uninteresting and though there’s some attempt to develop something unique with the character of Killer, he seems completely out of place in this story. Killer and his story line are unnecessary to Driver’s story and though Killer is far more interesting than anything else director George Tillman Jr. presents, it’s a great disservice that we get to see so little of the character. That character and his girl friend Lilly (Maggie Grace) deserved their own film.

Then there’s the mystery that starts unravelling as Cop’s partner Cicero (Carla Gugino again being severely underused) stars to put the pieces together. Halfway through the film we know where this is going and this is one of those times where knowing really does detract from the enjoyment of the movie. I was mostly bored throughout and though I liked a few of the encounters (Driver’s visit to his ex-girlfriend’s is particularly memorable), Killer’s awesome scenes were mostly too short and peppered too far apart to keep me interested in the story. And what’s the deal with the movie’s title? I still haven’t figured out why it’s called Faster. It’s not like he’s up against the clock or anything.

Overall, I didn’t enjoy Johnson’s return to action and I hope that he manages to pick-up some better material for future projects. It would suck to have him go out with such a forgettable flick. As for Killer, someone should look at giving this flawed, overly ambitious character his own movie because he was fantastic and Oliver Jackson-Cohen was great in the role.

Faster is available on DVD and Blu-Ray on February 22nd.

DVD Extras: A collection of extended and deleted scenes with the option to watch them with director’s commentary but by far the highlight is the much more violent and satisfying alternate ending which was edited because it tested poorly with audiences. Still doesn’t salvage the film as a whole but definitely ends on a more satisfying note (with much smaller window for possible sequels).