I went into this movie not expecting much, the average dumbed down action flick with the Rock putting boots to @rses. Something akin to "The Marine". However, much to my delight what I received was so much more.
Award material? Certainly not, but one hell of a ride for sure. Technically this movie is average at best. The story is predictable, clichéd at times and we have all seen this so many times before. A character with a shady past returns after a long absence to take some well deserved revenge. People die, but wait there is a twist as all may not be as it seems. More people die, etcetera...
It takes some serious cues from old spaghetti westerns, perhaps nowhere is that more evident than in the alternate ending(which I actually heavily prefer over the theatrical ending). The character of Killer even has the theme from "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" as a ringtone on his phone.
I could personally have done without the rather heavy handed religious overtones at times. The themes of vengeance, forgiveness, redemption, pride and acceptance run throughout the various sub-plots. These do manage to nicely weave themselves into the main story later on in the movie. Giving a fairly acceptable reason for their brute force application.
As an all-out action revenge film "Faster" is great though, not the best one out there - but still great. The overall product seems to transcend it's various problems and deliver a solid revenge movie at the end. I was pleasantly surprised by the movie as a whole and had a great time watching it, just don't expect too much.
Critically I would hand "Faster" a 4 but from a more basal pure enjoyment level I might go as high as 7.5 handing in an overall score of 6 out of 10.
Award material? Certainly not, but one hell of a ride for sure. Technically this movie is average at best. The story is predictable, clichéd at times and we have all seen this so many times before. A character with a shady past returns after a long absence to take some well deserved revenge. People die, but wait there is a twist as all may not be as it seems. More people die, etcetera...
It takes some serious cues from old spaghetti westerns, perhaps nowhere is that more evident than in the alternate ending(which I actually heavily prefer over the theatrical ending). The character of Killer even has the theme from "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" as a ringtone on his phone.
I could personally have done without the rather heavy handed religious overtones at times. The themes of vengeance, forgiveness, redemption, pride and acceptance run throughout the various sub-plots. These do manage to nicely weave themselves into the main story later on in the movie. Giving a fairly acceptable reason for their brute force application.
As an all-out action revenge film "Faster" is great though, not the best one out there - but still great. The overall product seems to transcend it's various problems and deliver a solid revenge movie at the end. I was pleasantly surprised by the movie as a whole and had a great time watching it, just don't expect too much.
Critically I would hand "Faster" a 4 but from a more basal pure enjoyment level I might go as high as 7.5 handing in an overall score of 6 out of 10.