I’d like to thank Need for Speed for doing half of my job for me. The title isn’t just a Top Gun reference, it’s very constructive criticism. Who knew a film about driving at 180mph could be this slow?
Personally, I blame the best intentions: Need for Speed is based on a pretty plotless video game, so the filmmakers worked overtime to make all the characters relatable and their motivations to perform feats of vehicular insanity seem more or less sound. In theory this would be a good idea because it doesn’t matter how incredible your stunts are if we don’t care about why they’re happening in the first place. So director Scott Waugh and screenwriters George and John Gatins have cooked up a tale of betrayal and revenge to get us interested. The problem is they totally blew it, and should have relied on fast-paced action sequences to distract us from how much their story sucks.
Somehow it takes half an hour to establish that Aaron Paul is a good guy, Dominic Cooper is a bad guy, and to get them into an illegal street race that kills Paul’s best friend/protégé/sidekick. After hearing repeated speeches from this kid about how great Aaron Paul is, how he had a psychic vision of a lighthouse and about how wonderful their future is going to be together, we not only know that he is going to die, we want him to die very, very quickly. That it takes forever almost insulting.
It’s a simple set-up: one racer with a grudge against another, driving like a maniac to prove he’s the best and goad the other into direct competition. But Need for Speed doesn’t think it’s a simple movie. It thinks it’s a really big movie that earns its protracted prologue and overwrought emotional moments. If the script had bothered to give any of its characters more than one distinguishing trait, it might have gotten away with it. If the script had bothered to actually replace the placeholder dialogue with words that human beings might actually say to each other, it also might have worked. Instead we’re forced to spend an interminable amount of time with terrible video game cut scenes, and worse, the kind you can’t skip.
Fortunately, Scott Waugh has a canny eye for action and an impressive dedication to practical stunts. He has the sense necessary to let the camera linger on the impressive spectacles long enough for audiences to know exactly what’s going on and why it was worth filming in the first place. I’d like to be able to say that after Need for Speed gets going it’s a non-stop thrill ride, but between every amazing car stunt there’s always several minutes of self-important dialogue and unnecessary exposition, leaving us with just enough time to reflect on how none of this makes any god damned sense.
Paul’s plan to get back at Cooper is a headscratcher. He gets in a high-speed car chase in Detroit to attract the attention of a podcaster named Monarch (Michael Keaton), who also runs an illegal street race. Once he’s in the race, and scheduled to compete against his old rival, Paul then has to haul ass across America in record time to complete his registration. Why even bother making a scene in Detroit? Why not drive across the country and then attract Monarch’s attention, sparing himself the annoyance of avoiding the authorities and Cooper’s blank slate bounty hunters for 2,397 miles?
For that matter, what the hell is Paul’s plan when he even gets there, anyway? To beat Cooper in a street race? That wouldn’t solve his problems. The last-minute plot point that might – just might – exact a proper revenge against Cooper is completely unexpected, and nothing Paul could have counted on. Paul doesn’t know that Cooper’s financial future relies on this street race, or that beating him would therefore destroy his life. Come to think of it, the race itself doesn’t even make any sense. The winner gets to take home all the other cars, but all the other cars end up in fiery wrecks, courtesy of highway patrol officers who set up bizarre booby traps apparently inspired by the climax of Return of the Jedi.
Exclusive Video: Imogen Poots explains the various whizzing practices on the set of Need for Speed.
I wouldn’t care about any of these things if Need for Speed had moved quickly enough to distract my attention. All I needed to ignore or at least forgive the one-dimensional characters, the padded plot and the egregious lapses in logic were a series of action sequences that weren’t constantly interrupted by dialogue-driven reminders of why I shouldn’t care. Aaron Paul and Imogen Poots are charismatic enough to drive Need for Speed in complete silence. Forcing them to yell their eye colors at each other doesn’t make me care about them, it just makes me care when they’re going to shut up and jump that Shelby over a poorly camouflaged ramp again.
Need for Speed would be an amazing 80-minute movie. We didn’t need to pad it out to two hours and ten minutes. We needed speed, damn it. The car chases may be exciting but the film is just one stall after another.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
