Faster
Release Date:
November 19, 2010
On the Big Board |
| Position |
Staff |
In Brief |
| 95/190 |
Max Braden |
Nice to see Dwayne Johnson as a bad-ass rather than his soft family-oriented side, but skip this and just watch Fast Five. |
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has certainly come a long way from The Scorpion King back in 2002. Since breaking onto the movie scene and looking like a likely candidate to become the next big action star, he’s starred in middling comedies and dopey kids films. The Game Plan, Get Smart, Planet 51, The Tooth Fairy... granted, these movies probably did a nice job of packing his wallet, but those aren’t the kinds of movies that help you build street cred.
Well, looks like Johnson is headed back down Hardcore Avenue with Faster, an action-thriller helmed by George Tillman, Jr., who’s more known for doing African-American leaning films like Soul Food and Notorious (looks like Johnson won’t be the only one out of his comfort zone here). The plot of the film centers around a recently-released prison inmate who served ten years in the slammer for a botched bank robbery that took the life of his brother. Once free, he goes on a killing rampage to take revenge on the four men responsible for his brother’s murder, all the while pursued by a veteran police officer and an egocentric hitman.
Sounds a little Tarantino-esque, right? A little bit Kill Bill-ish? The characters even have names like Driver, Cop, and Killer. Whether any of this pans out is anyone’s guess, though the pedigree of the film in front of the camera definitely outshines that behind the camera. In front, you have the aforementioned Johnson along with Billy Bob Thornton playing Cop and Jake-Gyllenhaal-lookalike Oliver Jackson-Cohen playing Killer. Behind the camera, you have director George Tillman, Jr. with his modest box-office success and co-screenwriters Joe and Tony Gayton, whose credits include not a single film I’ve ever seen or heard of.
Faster is one of the first films distributed by the newly revamped CBS Films. Its box office fate will likely be dependent on whether or not audiences are willing to buy Johnson as an action star once again. It’s the difference between having people walk by the poster of the film and say, “Hey, it’s that wrestler guy,” and having them say, “Hey, it’s the tooth fairy!” (Jason Lee/BOP)
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