Director: Scott Waugh
Starring: Aaron Paul, Dominic Cooper, Imogen Poots, Scott Mescudi
IMDB: 7.3*
RT: 23*
Box Office: $126.5 Million (Worldwide)*
Summary-
Tobey Marshall is small time street racer and car shop owner who gets an offer to make a lot of money. When he is framed for his friends death by a wealthy business associate he is put in prison. 2 years later he gets out and drives across the country trying to get himself to a legendary street race to face off against his rival, while also being chased by the police and other enemies.
Review (SPOILERS!)-
I knew this was going to be a shit movie from the moment I heard they where making it. That being said I still really wanted to see it. I love the Need for Speed games and am a big fan of car movies so I was hoping this would be a fun B-movie that could at least keep me entertained. In some ways it did do that but the film was just a lot worse than I expected.
The film opens with Tobey Marshall (Aaron Paul) and his crew of friends working at their car shop and then going to the local drive in to get ready for a street race. While they are there Marshall's ex-girlfriend shows up with her boyfriend Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper) who is a hot shot professional racer. Tobey and his crew have a pretty good system of how to do street races, Benny (Scott Mescudi) is a pilot who makes sure they have a clear path and Finn (Rami Malek) and Joe Peck (Ramon Rodriguez) are on the ground and Little Pete (Harrison Gilbertson) is like Tobey's little brother and he races too. Tobey pretty easily wins the race and he heads back to his shop to celebrate with his buddies. This is when he receives and offer from Dino to fix up a very expensive car. Tobey accepts the offer despite a distrust of Dino because he needs the money to pay of the loans on the shop. (They have some old high school beef that is never explained)
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| I'm pretty sure Ford paid for half this damn movie |
Tobey and his crew fix up this car and they sell it for $2.7 million but Dino feels threatened by Tobey and challenges him to a race. Tobey and Pete come to Dino's Uncles house and he shows them 3 European Super Cars that they are going to race. At this point I knew exactly what was going to happen because they telegraphed every plot point. Tobey looks like he is going to win the race and Pete is preventing Dino from passing so that his friend can win so Dino flips Pete's car and he dies. Tobey gets arrested and Dino covers his ass and puts all the blame on Tobey and he goes to jail.The first act of the film is not terrible but its not great either. It adequately sets up a preschool level plot, has a few cool action sequences and does not reveal the terrible acting abilities of its cast fully. The second and third act is where the film really shows its hand.
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| Showing off the Mustang some more |
2 years later Tobey gets out of jail. This is one of the first questions I had. Why was he only in jail for 2 years? I understand he only got in trouble for manslaughter, but when he was arrested they also said that the 2 cars they where driving were reported stolen. Wouldn't he have gotten a longer prison sentence for stealing 2 cars worth over a million dollars? Oh well I can live with plot holes like that because at least its a debatable question. After he gets out of jail he immediately goes down to his closed shop, asks the guy who owns the car he sold to let him borrow the car to enter this big race that Michael Keaton's character holds. The guy agrees as long as his assistant Julia (Imogen Poots) comes along. They realize they have to drive to California in less than 46 hours to get to the race in time. After a series of obstacles they get to California and he gets invited to the big race to face off against Dino.
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| The Final Race |
The film really picks up in pace in the second act and we get a cool car chase around Detroit and a really big one with some hillbilly guys in trucks trying to kill Tobey in the southwest U.S. I was pretty impressed with the car chase sequences but that was to be expected as the director is known for his stunt work. The main issue with the film is the cookie cutter characters, especially Tobey's friends. I was also very disappointed in Aaron Paul, he just seemed very awkward in the role. He tried to pull of this brooding, quite street racer character with a raspy voice but I just wanted to laugh whenever I looked at him. It just seemed that the writing was very poor and the director had no feel for how to direct real actors. There were also a number of unresolved and not well fleshed out plot points.
Final Thoughts-
Despite all of the very negative opinions I have of this movie I still thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm not sure why. The action sequences were solid but unspectacular, the acting was piss poor and the writing was terrible but somehow it's watchable. Will I ever watch it again? Probably not but I'm not mad about having seen it. If your into car movies this might be worth a red-box rental at some point but that's about it.
MY RATING-
2 out of 5
-Chris "Da Franchize" Hart
*Ratings and Box Office info as of March 24th 2014
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