Need for Speed: A 4-Cylinder Ferrari

When news of an adaptation come out, my excitement is at level 9. The first trailer lands, it goes down to 6. Second trailer surfaces, divide 6 by 2. Even though the final product isn’t a complete wreck, it’s a really rusty car in the shell of a fancy one.

Two things you need to know about Tobey Marshall – he has serious skills behind the wheel and is framed for killing his best friend Pete. Now out after two years in prison, Tobey wants to set things right the only way he knows how: beating Dino Brewster in the very dangerous DeLeon race. And off we go from Mount Kisco, New York to San Francisco, California, avoiding anti-street racing lawmen and Dino’s bounty hunters along the way.

When a particular entry in the Need for Speed game series has a need for story, I can only say “oh boy”. Though dreaded by cut-scenes that are badly acted and written (maybe on purpose?), the excitement from driving dream cars and evading cops make them tolerable, or even fun. Extending this to 130 minutes trip quite a lot of alarms but the screenplay from brothers George and John Gatins (the latter’s Flight was nominated for an Oscar) don’t seem to give a damn. You may say the stilted and cheesy writing is a nod to the games, but to be honest it should’ve stayed there and the Gatinses could’ve treated the material in a different way, in a better way.

Aaron Paul, Fresh from the show that conquers television called Breaking Bad, Aaron Paul could’ve and should’ve been a leading man somewhere else. Paul growls through most of his lines in Need for Speed, emphasizing his heroism to the point my sister declares “he’s trying so hard to be cool”. I somewhat agree, considering there are times Paul stops fueling his action-film-hero bravado and switches to a character viewers can connect, however his performance is peaked at “acceptable”. The same can be said for Imogen Poots (Amy in Fright Night), though I do admit it’s nice to see her role beating the stereotype regarding girls and their knowledge about cars. The rest of the cast comfortably assembles in the “two-dimensional” club – rapper Kid Cudi (as Scott Mescudi), Ramon Rodriguez (the incredibly annoying Leo Spitz in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen) and Rami Malek (Ahkmenrah in Night at the Museum) as the comic relief trio, Dominic Cooper (Howard Stark in Captain America) on constant villain mode, Dakota Johnson (Anastasia Steele in Fifty Shades of Grey) in a really unnecessary ex-girlfriend role and finally a really hammy Michael Keaton (Raymond Sellars in RoboCop remake). Out of everyone, only a few come off as ‘alive’ – Paul, Poots and, sometimes, the comical three – while others are just plain bare.

Two more issues I have with Need for Speed is the editing and the music. Although Paul Rubell (Thor, Transformers) and director Scott Waugh (Act of Valor) smartly avoid using quick cuts, we have really crude shots – due to lighting and angles – wedge between really cinematic ones. If not that then there’ll be transitions messing up the feeling of speed, with angle ‘A’ showing the cars going really fast, then ‘B’ in which everything looks oddly slow and back again. The first race, a muscle car battle, suffers greatly from this, others not so much. Heavy-handed is definitely the order of the day for Nathan Furst’s music, over-inflating whichever mood or emotion that’s on-screen and at certain times really not needed. However, Furst’s choice of songs does make a couple of scenes surprisingly effective.

Had it not for all those aforementioned points I’d have totally enjoyed the amazing photography from Shane Hurlbut (Terminator Salvation, Into the Blue) plus outstanding stunt-work from Lance Gilbert (xXx, Vacancy) and his team. Need for Speed is, so far, the first feature film I know of to use GoPro cameras extensively, placing viewers so close to the action it’s uncomfortable – and that’s a good thing when I get to see crashes, drifts or the breathtaking airlift over Colorado River. Speaking of breathtaking, all the stunts are done practically, like the days of Bullitt (also featured in the film) and The French Connection, providing genuine thrill and excitement the latest three Fast & Furious installments decide to ditch for outlandish set pieces.

My experience with Need for Speed can now be summed up as driving a 4-cylinder Ferrari – looking really nice with awful installations under the hood. With such an uneven performance, do return this one to the dealership.