Action revenge cinema lives! I'm not at all a fan of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's work, to be honest, but his increased stature (the man is a monster) combined with a roaring muscle car, thunderous hand-cannon and "man of few words" character create a truly imposing anti-hero one can't help but admire. Instead of dazzling us with Johnson's athleticism and razor-sharp comedic timing or mucking things up with cheesy eyebrow gags, director Tillman Jr. opts instead to let Johnson's stone-faced brutality do the talking and Faster benefits greatly from that.
Certainly there's very little to go on here, Faster is tragically predictable, but what do plot, story and character arcs have to do with plain old revenge seasoned with gun powder and the pathetic groveling of the wicked? What this film offers, it delivers on in spades and that's what good revenge cinema is all about. Frankly I'm a bit surprised this barely made its production budget back because I found it to be great fun, very entertaining, violent stuff and I just can't imagine most action fans disliking this.
I can't say I loved this film, I did have a few small gripes in which I felt they dropped the ball with Johnson's character, but I'll be damned if I won't be picking this up when I get the chance. The cinematography was clean, the action/revenge in-your-face and brutal (like good action/revenge cinema should be) and the soundtrack featuring composer Clint Mansell, Kenny Rogers, Iggy Pop and legendary Italian composers Guido and Maurizio De Angelis was outstandingly groovy! "In the know" listeners will notice the De Angelis track is "Goodbye My Friend" from Enzo G. Castellari's poliziottesco classic, Street Law. Way to score points with the cult cinema geeks! Action films come and go, most aren't worth watching twice these days but there are a few that have put a smile on this jaded fan's face. I was thoroughly entertained, hopefully you will be too.
Certainly there's very little to go on here, Faster is tragically predictable, but what do plot, story and character arcs have to do with plain old revenge seasoned with gun powder and the pathetic groveling of the wicked? What this film offers, it delivers on in spades and that's what good revenge cinema is all about. Frankly I'm a bit surprised this barely made its production budget back because I found it to be great fun, very entertaining, violent stuff and I just can't imagine most action fans disliking this.
I can't say I loved this film, I did have a few small gripes in which I felt they dropped the ball with Johnson's character, but I'll be damned if I won't be picking this up when I get the chance. The cinematography was clean, the action/revenge in-your-face and brutal (like good action/revenge cinema should be) and the soundtrack featuring composer Clint Mansell, Kenny Rogers, Iggy Pop and legendary Italian composers Guido and Maurizio De Angelis was outstandingly groovy! "In the know" listeners will notice the De Angelis track is "Goodbye My Friend" from Enzo G. Castellari's poliziottesco classic, Street Law. Way to score points with the cult cinema geeks! Action films come and go, most aren't worth watching twice these days but there are a few that have put a smile on this jaded fan's face. I was thoroughly entertained, hopefully you will be too.