My Review of "Faster"

Faster came out back in 2010. It's a pretty fun concept and you can sort of see some comparisons to it to John Wick. Unfortunately there's nothing that really jumps out that really makes this movie a stand out. That's not to say that this isn't an entertaining movie though. It's a pretty fun popcorn movie but it's ultimately forgettable.

This movie starts off with this elusive character just known as the driver. I'm not sure how they went through the whole movie without saying his name but I they had this intro that introduced him as simply driver. The reason why he's in prison pretty much unfolds throughout the movie. He's just being released from prison after 10 long years.

They already start to build some sort of hype about driver because the prison guards and warden are pretty much talk about him as if he's some sort of boogie man there. He pretty much kept to himself in prison but seeing as it's a prison the other inmates are going to start something with him. They obviously tried but he's taken them all down easily. So this is the part that I thought it was going to be like John Wick.

Then when he gets out of prison things get a little wonky. He waits for someone to pick him up but then realizes nobody is coming and then he starts running off. He runs to this garage and luckily there's a key on the tire and he just drives the car off. I then think that the events in this movie are a little too convenient.

He drives off and then immediately goes after this guy in an office building. As he casually gets out of the car he reminisces about the past and we soon learn that he was part of a bank robbery back in the day. He was obviously the getaway driver. We soon realize he's out on some revenge killing because he walks into the office building and shoots one of the associates there point blank.

The police officers assigned to the case soon take over the narration of the movie. We realize that the driver is on a revenge rampage and he's going after everyone on a kill list that he made. It's your basic run of the mill revenge story but told in an interesting way. They're make some pretty interesting choices in the plot twists.

To add to the chaos they have some hired killer going after the driver. He's a rich, smart playboy that pretty much has everything going for him but wants a challenge. I guess everything is too easy for him. There's a really cheesy line in there where he claims that he has beat yoga. I was laughing about that because that is utterly ridiculous. The whole movie is a little ridiculous so just go with it.

There are central themes to the movie though. They talk about addiction and fixations. Sometimes they're our own demons because we don't know what we're becoming because of them. Everyone has their own addictions but we don't realize what harm we're doing because of our fixations over them. In this case, the driver's addiction was his path of revenge. People in the movie are also addicted to drugs and they have reasons for that as well. The killer stalking the driver has an obsession with being the best.

I thought that the theme of obsession was nicely woven into the movie. There were some interesting twists closer to the end of the movie as well. Some of the things they did with this movie were pretty clever. The problem was that they did so much without a clear focus.

Even the driver was a weird character. He was pretty much patsy before he went to prison. He did has he was told by his brother and was very timid. He then becomes this superman on a revenge hunt after he gets out of prison. It didn't really make sense as to how he become such a superman when he was so timid 10 years ago. Also how is he a great fighter when he was only a driver before. There's no mention as to how he became good at shooting and fighting. Also there was only 2 big driving scenes in the movie. One was before the driver went to prison and the other one is an escape from the killer that is chasing him.

Overall, it was still an entertaining movie. The themes that they brought up closer to the last half of the movie were pretty interesting but I wish they brought them up earlier. Well they did bring it up a little in the beginning but it's much more evident closer to the end. I have to give this movie a 6.5 out of 10. If you're looking for a fun action movie this is it. You'll get your thrills from this movie but don't expect to remember it if someone asks you about it a year later.