Fun over realism admittedly, but I enjoyed it

Rating: 6/10 (23 July 2017)

"Speed" is an American English-language film from 1994, so two more years only until this one has its 25th anniversary. It was directed by Jan de Bont (actually the first directorial effort of this prolific cinematographer) and written by Graham Yost and for both of them this (almost) 2-hour movie is among their most famous. One reason is that this film won 2 of its 3 Oscar nominations (lost Editing to Forrest Gump) and another is that this film is still considered one of the defining action films from the 1990s. It features the relatively young Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock and (the not so young) Dennis Hopper. This is obviously not a film about individual performances, but it needs to be said that Reeves was working the part nicely and Hopper was also good, but admittedly had very little to work with in terms of both screen time and material. Bullock on the other hand I don't even think the performance was a problem at all, but eventually her portrayal was the weakest from the entire film and it is ridiculous she even got awards attention for her turn. It is the epitome of a badly-written female character in an action movie. Early on she gets hit on by a guy who is somewhat of a mini antagonist, but of course she is too good for him and then there are these banter moments with Reeves' character and we knew exactly where this was heading. She is a tough intelligent woman, but needs constant saving and nice words from the big hero. I cannot deny I would have preferred her character to be left completely out of the picture, but I guess they did not want to go for a sausage fest. Oh well.
Back to the positive: This film has a fairly massive runtime, but it never drags and has no lengths at all I would say. They weren't scared of sacrificing several of the good characters to show how evil the bad guy was and this is a brave approach that we do not always get. I also found it interesting how the movie, fitting the title, moves from slow to fast methods of transportation. It all starts in an elevator, then a bus (the core of the film), and eventually a metro train. Talking about the metro train, fans of the television show "The West Wing" will see (and hopefully enjoy) a familiar face in there. Back to this one here, this is not a film you want to go for if you are in need of realism. There were probably a hundred aspects that would not happen like that in reality or we can also include unrealistic plot developments here. There is a hole in the road and the rails aren't finished either? Nah. Also admittedly the screenplay is not particularly creative as all the ideas are fairly simple really, like the traffic jam or the lack of fuel etc. But I will admit they still worked. As did the entire film. It has its weaknesses and I would not call it a classic, but it was a genuinely entertaining two hours. I give it a thumbs-up and recommend checking it out.