Need for Speed
Based on the popular but story-bare video game series, Need for Speed follows racer and mechanic Tobey Marshall (Aaron Paul: Breaking Bad). A small-town racer trying to keep his father’s auto shop afloat in a tough economy, Tobey scrapes by winning local street racing competitions. But his monetary problems need a long-term solution.
Along comes Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper: Fleming), the small-town rich kid who made good. We know Dino is evil because he wears black and sneers at everybody.
Dino challenges Tobey to a street race using supercars that aren’t street legal. When the race goes south, a friend is barbequed in a crash. Tobey tries to save his friend while Dino, who caused the accident, frames Tobey.
After two years in prison, Tobey is back. How will he exact vengeance on the man who sent him to prison and caused a car wreck that killed his best friend? By racing him in another illegal street competition.
Again, you don’t need to be smart to star in your own street-racing movie.
Need for Speed is guilty of the cardinal action-movie sin: It’s boring. Races are dull, acting uninspired and story pathetic. It’s a failure on every possible level. Director Scott Waugh (Act of Valor) has a terrible sense of editing, and his rapid cuts drag out action sequence into mind-numbing eternity.
A toddler with a set of Matchbox cars could have devised a more complex, plausible and compelling story than writers George and John Gatins.
Paul emerged from Breaking Bad as one of television’s most promising actors. Here, he gives a performance worthy of a thesaurus of pejorative descriptors. If this performance is indicative of what he’s capable of on the big screen, he had better go running back to LA before pilot season ends.
You don’t buy a ticket for a movie titled Need for Speed expecting tight plotting or even amazing acting. At best, you’re paying to see some exciting car chases, flashy cars and attractive actors. This one stalls at the gate, delivering boring race footage, terrible acting and a cast who seem to be counting the seconds until Waugh calls cut and puts them out of their misery. Mine continued for two hours and 12 minutes.