The best picture of 1994

Rating: 10/10 (25 April 2008)

The film has not a single flaw, and a minimum of physics-defying stunts necessary to make the action film work. The bus is diverted to a place where it can (temporarily) survive, and the few leaps of faith (and more yards than a human can leap) are minimalistic plot devices, nothing more. This film is about the people caught in a suspenseful, yet survivable, crisis. This firlm is a THRILLER that demolishes its peers from its own era and rivals that of any era, and even that quaint little British serial about some over-the-top secret agent spty guy.
Keanu Reeves (Jack "I put the SWAT in SWAT" Traven, LAPD SWAT) and Sandra Bullock (Annie Porter) could Just as easily have been Gable and Hepburn. Reeves is more cartoonish, but carries his "supporting" role well. The clear star of the film is Sandra Bullock, the grouchy, half-awake commuter grunt thrust behind the wheel of a bus that is rigged to explode if it slows down below 50 mph. Hitchcock would have been proud of the suspense, and special effects worthy of evolving his cro-duster scene from that era.
While a complete film in the true sense of the word, the story never strays from its title premise. The desperation attempts to survive could fail at any time, and the passengers not only know this, but half of them seem to expect it, though they try as they can to survive. This film brought us an insider's video of those scenes we usually only read about or watch on the news, and gave us an oddball supporting cast of stereotypical LA and tourist types that made us feel like we were on the bus right with them, wishing the crisis was over so we could get to wherever we were going, and do what we were doing, without being bothered by high-level criminals using us as a pawn, and could they please get us off this damn bus? What every action film tries to be, and rarely is. Die Hard on a bus.