"Need for Speed" Review

There are two things that are very hard to accomplish that Need for Speed tries to do. Making a great street racing movie and making a great movie based on a Video Game. The Fast and the Furious series has a hit and miss relationship with decent filmmaking, but it pretty much has the genre cornered. As for movies based on Video Games, there hasn't really been a great one made yet, but the best ones have been Mortal Kombat and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. So with two tricky fields to conquer, how does Need for Speed fare? 

Tobey Marshall is a former street racer who is wrongly convicted for involuntary manslaughter. When he gets out of the slammer, he and his crew set out to get justice from the one who framed him by challenging him to a high profile street race. 

I wanted this movie to be good. I played the video game, I knew who most of the actors were, the trailer stunts looked impressive. Unfortunately, the end product is a paint by numbers piece with almost nothing original. The plot is fairly contrived from previous street racing films, and even major cinema pieces. I did laugh somewhat extensively at an American Graffiti reference, but otherwise there is almost nothing to the story that hasn't been seen before. 

The characters, even the ones performed well, aren't developed beyond stock tropes. They remain flat, with generic friend attributes that don't give the film any sort of emotional depth, nor is there really much payoff at the end because we don't really feel much for the characters aside from Tobey Marshall. 

There was such an inherent focus on the stunts which I do have to admit was rather impressive. The stunts are well choreographed and executed brilliantly, so for that reason, the film succeeds a little bit.  I also appreciate that the stunts were filmed practically rather than without special effects. However, the entire thing feels like a 2 hour commercial for the Shelby Mustang. 

The only other positive aspect of the film aside from the stunts is the lead performance of the brilliant Aaron Paul. While his character simply isn't as interesting as his performance of Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad, he has a wider emotional range than anyone else in this film. Amongst all else, he feels like the only actor in this film who isn't phoning it in. Impressive given this film also features Michael Keaton. 

Other than the lead performance of Aaron Paul and the impressive driving stunts, this film is one to miss. 

C