- Title: Speed
- IMDb: link
Wayback Wednesday takes us back to 1994 and a bus that couldn’t drop below 50 MPH or everyone onboard would die. There are action films that are so big they spawn imitators of every stripe for the next several years. An immediate critical and box office success, like Die Hard before it, where every pitch became “Die Hard on a ____,” so too was the case for Speed as countless studios attempted to recreate the formula.
Still firmly in bro mode, Keanu Reeves stars as LAPD SWAT bomb disposal officer Jack Traven whose team foils a bomber’s (Dennis Hopper) plans in the opening action scene where he holds an elevator full of hostages for ransom. Our mad man returns by hijacking a bus which Jack has to board while moving and then keep above 50 MPH or the bombs aboard will explode. The most important passenger turns out to be Annie (Sandra Bullock) who takes over driving the bus, after the driver is shot, and offers a potential romantic interest for Jack.
Although I think you could easily dump the last 15 minutes of the film, taking place after the action on the bus concludes (despite how well the final stunt works, all of it unnecessarily draws out the film), Speed hits the sweet spot for the genre with Hopper chomping scenery and Reeves and Bullock being put in one impossible situation after another, with ratcheting tension, while attempting to outthink the villain and get everyone off the bus alive. Other characters of note are Jeff Daniels as Jack’s partner, who Jack shoots in the opening sequence to best the bomber, Joe Morton as their boss, and Ferris Bueller‘s Alan Ruck as the kind of guy you would never want to get stuck on a bus with.
There are several notable stunts in the film including Jack working hard to get onboard the bus after it has already gotten on the highway. There’s also the big stunt involving the bus jumping a gap in the freeway (which unfortunately is cribbed later on in the final sequence where the subway also runs out of track). The subway sequence, while impressive (and helped sell the studio on the film) has the oddity of feeling both too similar and too different to the rest of the film.
The film came from a mix of inspiration including everything from Akira Kurosawa to Silver Streak. The film was cinematographer Jan de Bont‘s directorial debut and, by far, his most successful film in the director’s chair. While Graham Yost is the only writer credited on the script, he’s given credit to Joss Whedon for the majority of the movie’s dialogue including the “pop quiz” lines which were repeated throughout the film. Other notable lines include “shoot the hostage,” “well, I’m taller,” and “get on or get off.” The likes of Stephen Baldwin and Halle Berry passed on the roles before the script found itself in the hands of Reeves and Bullock.
The film simply works, is an all-around fun action flick, and holds up pretty well nearly 30 years later. Speed has been released several times on home video from VHS, to LaserDisc, to DVD, to Blu-ray, and is currently available on streaming on a variety of platforms. The movie also spawned a regrettable sequel in which only Bullock returned (and only as quid pro quo to get the film she wanted into production). While Hope Floats is a fine enough little film, it’s nowhere good enough to justify the existence of Speed 2. To be fair, hardly anything would be.
Watch the trailer
