The cinematic shot of adrenalin that resurrected an agonizing action movie gimmick...

Rating: 10/10 (26 January 2016)

The 70's had "Jaws", the 80's had "Die Hard" and the 90's had "Speed". What do all these movies have in common? An irresistible and unmistakable high concept: a uniqueness in the plot allowing other movies to be summarized by simple combinations, like "Alien" is "Jaws" in space, and "Under Siege " is "Die Hard" in a boat. It's by the way an odd coincidence that the director of "Speed", the unknown Jan de Bont was the cinematographer of "Die Hard", he sure learned in the best school.
So, "Speed" relies on a simple concept: a bus can't slow down under 50 mph, otherwise, it explodes. Let me take a few lines because the wannabe screenwriter I am can't resist to the temptation of exalting such a high high-concept. I think, it's the kind of ideas that are worth at least half the work, I mean, imagine a producer being submitted such a project, how many spectacular premises does that hold? How about a traffic jam? What if a road comes to a dead end? How can the passengers leave the bus? How can they disarm the bomb? How can the villain make sure they can't take the passengers out? How will they be able to fool the villain anyway? etc. etc.
Movies based on "what if" situations are generally the best in the way they make you wonder what can happen next while you're already enjoying the present action, the enjoyment is doubled, and through a bus that can't go down 50 pm, everything is meant to happen fast, to put you on a constant edge. It was a no-fail guarantee and all "Speed" had to deliver were the requirements of the action genre, and get us a memorable movie villain, Dennis Hopper is perfect as the young and maniac bomb expert Howard Payne, a cool hero, Keanu Reeves, a then relatively new face of action movies and a young Sandra Bullock who has this mixture of inner heroism and genuine fear, something our female-power driven era would deem as sexist (God I miss the 90's!).
There is also Jeff Daniels as the more experienced cop, a script full of funny archetypal one- liners, and more than anything, a terrific plot structure. "Speed" actually, could have only consisted on a bus chase and it would have worked, but it spices up the material and pushes the envelope of the action genre by introducing two other spectacular sequences, one introducing the villain, who installs a bomb within the cables of an elevator and threatens to make a dozen of innocent people fall to their death, and the climax that can simply be summed up as "Speed" in a subway. I used to think that this was unnecessary, but when you think about it, "Speed" doesn't just overplay the action card, it also bases itself on a simple third-act structure: introduce the villain, then the meat of the story, the heart-pounding bus ride and then the ultimate confrontation.
"Speed" is like a great shot of adrenaline revisiting what was an agonizing action movie gimmick: the obligatory car chase. It would also inspire a less successful sequel with "Speed 2: Under Control", and I think it's a bit unfair to dismiss the whole movie, it didn't work because it didn't have ambition but because the original had too much of it, so it inevitably paled by comparison. 1994 was a terrific year for movies and it's all the more fitting to have a groundbreaking movie in the action genre.
That was a quick review, but if there's one thing I learned from "Speed" is that sometimes, the faster, the better.