Speed ***** (1994, Keanu Reeves, Dennis Hopper, Sandra Bullock, Jeff Daniels, Joe Morton) – Classic Movie Review 969

Director Jan de Bont’s incredibly fast-moving, nail-bitingly exciting 1994 action thriller turned into an instant classic and provided Keanu Reeves with his breakthrough blockbuster hit as young LAPD officer Jack Traven. It’s his job to save the lives of the passengers on a Santa Monica bus driven by feisty passenger Annie Porter (Sandra Bullock) with a bomb attached that will explode if it slows under 50mph.

Mad bomber terrorist Howard Payne’s elevator plan has backfired, so he plans a second assault by rigging a bomb to a LA city bus. He tells the cops that, once armed, the bus must stay above 50mph to keep from exploding. If there’s any attempt to unload any passengers, Payne will detonate the bomb.

This straightforward, n0-frills, all-thrills genre picture proved an important change of gear for quirky, indie actor Reeves, who commands the screen excitingly in a conventional action-man hero role, doing 90 per cent of his own stunts, and Bullock gives an eye-catching, appealing star-making turn, passing her test to drive a bus for the film on her first attempt.

But they have strong competition in the screen-grabbing department from Dennis Hopper giving a first-rate display of villainy as the crazed bomber, Jeff Daniels as nice cop Detective Harry Temple who supports Jack in helping him try to defuse the bomb and Joe Morton as Jack’s superior, Captain McMahon. All these three actors turn in their well-honed turns like the star character actors of old Hollywood.

Previously known as an ace cinematographer (Die Hard, The Hunt for Red October, Black Rain, Lethal Weapon 3), de Bont delivers a imaginatively handled movie in his first job as director, and relishes his command of a tough shoot involving a breathless series of chase sequences from an elevator shaft to the freeway and the airport then to a new subway.

Of course the story has to be taken with a huge pinch of salt, there’s not much characterisation or character development and Graham Yost’s screenplay mines every action movie cliché in the book. Yost is also credited for providing the original story but script doctor Joss Whedon rewrote the screenplay uncredited and, according to Yost, wrote most of its dialogue, which is one of the film’s main strengths.

But nothing about the script stops Speed being the most thrilling, heart-pounding of movies with awesome stunts and action sequences, especially the bus’s 50ft leap over a gap in the elevated freeway. A bus was specially modified so it could reach a speed of 70 mph and was equipped with powerful shock absorbers. The driver’s seat was on suspension mechanism and moved back 15 feet so the driver wouldn’t suffer spinal compression or be ejected from the bus.

The bus was started from about a mile back and accelerated towards a ramp. When it hit the ramp it had reached a speed of 61 mph. The bus travelled 109 feet and its front wheels reached an altitude of 20 feet.

Speed’s huge success deservedly shot Reeves to superstardom (though he waited a long time till The Matrix in 1999 for his next blockbuster) and launched the career of Bullock. Billy Idol sings the unmemorable title song Speed. The 1997 sequel, Speed 2, went down without Reeves aboard; Bullock could not pull in the fans without him.

Director de Bont went on to direct Twister (1996), the ill-fated Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997), The Haunting (1999) and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003) – his most recent directing credit by 2016.

The 105 freeway in California had recently been completed but not yet opened so the film-makers had all the time they needed to complete the freeway scenes without having to close down an operating freeway.

At least 12 different buses were used during the shooting of the movie. Yost named the main character after B. Traven, writer of the source novel of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Film Review 969 derekwinnert.com