Review: ‘Need for Speed’

For a movie titled “Need for Speed,” there is a distinct lack of urgency or vitality to the whole thing. There was plenty of speed, but was there much NEED for it? Eh, not really. Not in this movie anyway.

Which is unfortunate because “Need for Speed” has some things going for it on the outset that makes it a fun movie to root for to be good and do well. We got Aaron Paul, hot off the success of “Breaking Bad,” and he’s getting his first change to lead a big movie, and in the context of the film and what he has to do, he actually does quite a great job. As a matter of fact, with some more experience and years under his belt, Aaron Paul has a chance to be a strong, reliable movie leading man in the tradition of Humphrey Bogart, Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise (read: short), and even in a movie as lifeless as this one, we still see someone worth watching in this guy. Jesse Pinkman was not a fluke.

Also making the idea of “Need for Speed” cool is their approach to the stunt work, what with all the practical effects and the understanding of the joy and wonder and awe of watching huge vehicles crash hard at high speeds, often into each other, slowed down in order to allow our more perverse voyeuristic side enough time to take in all the visual information with our eyeballs, and sure there are more than a few of these crashes and some of them even look really cool. But considering that this was actually a big selling point of the movie, there is actually a lack of vehicular assault and damage done in this thing. Was the budget not high enough? Did they not think big enough? Because when you already have movies like “Fast 5” and “The Blues Brothers” destroying upwards of 200 cars each movie for their big finales, you have to wonder why this particular movie is so content to end a race with only 5-10 wrecks total. So there is actually a bit of a letdown in the car action quotient in this thing.

And the best idea of this movie? Casting Dominic Cooper and Michael Keaton. And the movie’s biggest sin. Wasting Dominic Cooper and Michael Keaton. Cooper, who is a great, underrated actor, gets to do nothing more than stand around and kind of look menacing, but also at times looking worried. His character is paper thin, which is a shame considering he’s the movie’s villain, but he’s just written to be an asshole and that is what he delivers and there just wasn’t anything there for him to really make an impression. Getting even worse treatment is Michael Keaton, who seems to be portraying some sort of car racing internet talk show host but who is also this super secret billionaire who puts on a super secret race that everyone knows about. He definitely filmed all of his scenes in one day, as he never left the one spot he “broadcasts” from, and he says some really corny stuff and does some mugging and it is just bad. Between this and “Robocop,” not the best year so far for Michael Keaton. And that makes me sad.

I suppose if this movie existed in some weird vacuum in which only other movies based on video games resided, and those were the only movies to which we could compare “Need for Speed,” then this might actually look like a good film. The action scenes are shot and presented competently enough, and there are even a few good ideas sprinkled throughout the thing, and that is a helluva lot more than one can say for the usual video game movie nonsense. But that is not this world, and there is a plethora of car movies out there that get it right, and “Need for Speed” just is not one of them.

I guess the biggest problem is that this movie is just too damn morose and brooding. A character gets killed early on, and Aaron Paul’s character spends the rest of the movie mourning him and seeking vengeance somehow, and there are just way too many scenes of characters looking intensely at nothing in general or at each other and everyone just being all sad for the most part. There is actually one scene where a mechanic turned office worker gets convinced to go back to working on cars, so he quits in a dramatic fashion that is obviously meant to be fun and quirky and it sticks out of this movie like a sore thumb because for once they were actually having FUN in this movie, and that’s what it needed, more of that stuff, more buoyancy and life to the whole thing to balance out all the overly serious parts.

And maybe they were GOING for that with the little ensemble of dudes they put around Aaron Paul’s character, like a low rent Ocean’s 11, except it ain’t even low rent, it’s more like Section 8 public housing Ocean’s 11, know what I’m throwing down? The characters are pretty much defined thusly: there’s wide-eyed, naive, fun Spanish guy mechanic, there’s stern, more cautious, older Spanish guy mechanic, there’s the fast talking, charming black guy who flies all the planes and helicopters (all the while being charming and talking fast) and doe-eyed, super young white guy who worships Aaron Paul’s character like a big brother, and that’s it. They talk some shit to each other, but are apparently all friends through the auto garage they work at, and they work together on the races like a Mission: Impossible type crew, but with all the charm and inventiveness of a bundle of paper bags floating in the wind. And it’s not the actors’ fault in any way, because like poor old Dominic Cooper and Michael Keaton, these guys had to work with what they were given, and there was just nothing there for them.

Seriously though, when the biggest stunt this “team” pulls off is gassing up a car one time without stopping and that’s it, they leave a lot to be desired. Because otherwise it’s just the two Spanish guys driving around in a tow truck constantly asking Aaron Paul how he is doing, and charming black guy somehow going from flying craft to flying craft so he can call in the detours and spot police cars from overhead, which I guess is actually helping. There’s also a part in which he hooks up the car to a helicopter and keeps it from crashing off a canyon cliff, which is in all the trailers and commercials anyway, so that one was given away long anyway.

I almost forgot to mention that Imogen Poots is in this movie, and every time she is on screen, all I can think in my head is “Imogen Poots. Imogen Poots. Imogen Poots” over and over and over, like a brain worm. Who the hell has a name like that? Is it real? Is it a “stage” name type of deal? Are her parents sadists? Did they conceive her while listening to an Imogen Heap – Poots Walker collabo? What was her character saying again? Who cares? Her name is Imogen Poots! Poots. Poots. Poots. One of those words, you keep saying it over and over and it loses all meaning. Poots. Poots. Poots poots poots poots. Im-oh-gen. Poots.

See? Right down the wormhole. I guess that’s more my problem, but hey, full disclosure I suppose.

So “Need for Speed” as a video game based movie ain’t the bottom of the barrel. But as a normal movie, it’s just drab and lifeless, which sucks because something like this could have easily been very exciting and over the top and even gonzo but instead they went with serious and gritty and ended up with boring and dull, and that’s the worst outcome possible pretty much.

Poots.