When I first saw the trailer for Faster in the theaters, wherein Dwayne Johnson was driving about in a vintage muscle car and shooting off round after round from his shiny and oh-so-manly Ruger Redhawk, I leaned over to my buddy Andrew and quipped, “Yeah, and the sequel will be called “Furiouser.” Indeed, the whole souped-up automobile adrenaline-pumping moving picture genre has become a bit too big for its own britches in the last ten years or so, but I must confess I’d rather watch The Artist Formerly Known As The Rock pushin’ the pedal to the metal in an early ‘70s Chevelle SS than see Vin Diesel zooming ‘round in some modern nitro-charged fiberglass contraption any ol’ day (yes, kids, vehicles were once made with metal).
And, frankly, the fact that this flick bore such a lame moniker probably did not help Faster in terms of performance at the box office — which is a shame, since it’s really not that bad of a movie.
Granted, it’s definitely a “b-movie.” The story here — which has a vengeful, mostly-silent Dwayne Johnson being released from prison, only to systematically hunt down and murder the men responsible for killing his step-brother and leaving him for dead several years before — is about as simple as you can get. But, when you combine cool guns, fast cars (both old and new) and lots of mindless action, you really can’t complain too terribly much about the outcome (well, unless you were one of the people that financed the movie, that is; but that’s what you get for calling a movie Faster, isn‘t it?).
Plus, any modern action/drama movie that has the courage to prominently feature a ‘70s Italian police/crime drama song by Guido & Maurizio De Angelis (the epic “Goodbye, My Friend” from Enzo G. Castellari’s Street Law) during its opening moments gets high praise by a classic Euro exploitation fan such as myself. The soundtrack also boasts the classic druggie fave, “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” by Kenny Rogers & The First Edition, as well as Iggy Pop’s “I Wanna Be Your Dog” — extra props for those of you who are sick of hearing the latest forgettable hip-hop track featured in their films.
Article comments
1 - Moses Jones
I liked seeing the Rock return to more action oriented films from the kiddie films that he did lately. I enjoyed his films like Rundown and Walking Tall.