Need For Speed is a good movie; perhaps not a great movie,
but a good movie. I almost didn’t see it in the theatre, I’m glad I did. I didn’t
know what to expect, being in a notoriously hard genre to get truly right, without
coming off like a total douchebag flick. Playing the video games growing up, I
already had a vested interest in the franchise.
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| Supercars and highways, classic NFS |
From the intro, with the imagery of retro Saturday night feature
winning short track; trophies, photos and mementos, made me realize right away,
this wasn’t going to be an entirely immature man-boy fantasy CGI race ‘em up!
The ‘organic’ nature of the auto action from the initial
drive sequences gave it a somewhat raw setting of older-skool car culture
cinema. I wasn’t sure about Breaking Bad’s, Aaron Paul as the main man, Tobey
Marshall, only because personally wasn’t really familiar with him, but he
pulled it off rather well as the strong, blue collar silent type, almost
throw-back greaser character.
Female lead, Imogen Poots as Julia Maddon, doesn’t take a
back seat, but a side seat or ‘right seater’, in supporting role that gave a
certain measured reflection of reality. She wasn’t the over the top in your
face type, which would almost be a cliché, strong female lead character by
today’s standards. At times, she was a little bit girlie, like when running to
the truck stop bathroom for a speedy freshen up complete with big accessory
bag, while Marshall gassed up the star car, a Carroll Shelby special ‘stang, on
a Cannonball style run, across the country. However, she to, would show her own
independent heroic nature, climbing out of a car, precariously at freeway
speeds, aiding the support-crew to refuel the car, on ‘the hop’.
What was a PC cliché, was Tobey’s crew and support network;
complete with African American Benny (Scott Mescudi), the Hispanic Joe Peck (Ramon
Rodriguez) and Arab, Finn (Rami Malek) and Little Pete (Harrison Gilbert) –don’t
forget the Aussies! But it’s all good, we’re among friends.
Amidst the shredding metal, end-over-end ‘autobatics’ and
lights ablaze; there were Automotive and Motorsport references aplenty, underpinning
NFS with a backdrop, set in a 'sim-cade', pseudo-reality . Benny who is a trained pilot, acts
as a spotter usually from a little Cessna plane that would make the likes of NASCAR’s
Joey Meier proud and Joe Peck observes a
‘loose setup’ of the hero car in preparation for the big event.
The movie, paid so much respect and homage to a range of
motorsport disciplines and automotive culture; it was almost a ‘best of’ what
came in decades past including; Vanishing Point, with Michael Keaton’
character, only known as ‘Monach’, as a mysterious romantic racing has-been
turned elite underground dee-jay secret race organiser guy, calling the action
from his studio booth. Bullitt gets an obvious look in too, at the drive-in
movie theater scene.
Where this movie fell down a bit for me, was I never truly
seemed to get emotionally involved in the main revenge aspect of the plot, even
though I wanted to see the good guys succeed, of course! The side plot of the mild romantic
interests, was a bit more believable.
The film, surmounted with the end sequence being the main
event race, the ‘De Lion’, is in the style of the original Need For Speed series
of video games, illegal street race concept with exotic cars on American
two-lane blacktop, set somewhere outside the major cities.
It may not have the serious blockbuster appeal that say,
Rush, may have had more for the mainstream, it’s well worth a watch for a bit
of road adventure, even if you’re not into the scene and wouldn’t appreciate
all the references.
