The classic action thriller turns 30 this year
Last week in my review of The Proposal, I had questions regarding Sandra Bullock’s stardom. I wondered what exactly catapulted her into mainstream success when all of her movies seemed distinctly average despite Bullock’s competency as an actor, but I admitted I had never seen Speed.
This week I sought to correct that oversight in my ongoing journey to discover the secret to Sandra Bullock’s success.
To the shock of none of the millions of people who have seen Speed since its release in 1994, I think I get it now.
Spend Half an Hour Waiting For a Bus…
For a movie about a bus that couldn’t slow down (I will link to this clip every chance I get and never apologise for it), Speed makes the surprisingly risky choice of taking things slow and not getting to the movie’s primary hook for more than thirty minutes.
After twenty minutes and no sign of Sandra Bullock, I had to double-check that I was even watching the right movie—maybe I’d clicked on another 90’s Keanu Reeve’s action flick by mistake.
I admire the writer’s decision to delay getting to ‘the point’ in favour of properly developing the relationship between the protagonist, Jack (Reeves) and the mystery antagonist played by Dennis Hopper. It doesn’t take much to imagine the studio notes imploring director Jan de Bont to skip all this stuff and get to the ACTION.
There’s a lesser movie there, one with a shorter runtime and a less interesting main character that lacks a personal connection with the villain. The bulk—if not all—of the film’s set pieces would work fine even if you cut out the first half hour, but it’s that personal touch that really makes the movie worth watching. If this movie were to debut on Netflix today, I can only assume that this is the version of the movie we’d get.
The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round and Round and Round and Round
What’s Speed all about anyway? Well, you know what Speed is about. Watch The Simpsons clip again. But if you insist on refusing to watch it, here’s a more detailed run-down.
After his first attempt to extort the government for millions of dollars is foiled by Officer Jack Traven, Dennis Hopper’s as-yet-unnamed character takes another stab at things by planting a bomb on a public bus—one that will detonate if the bus drops below 50mph. Jack, who take this a little personally, goes out of his way to board the bus and help the driver and passengers deal with the situation while his partner Harry (Jeff Daniels) tries to track down the culprit and figure out how to disarm the bomb.
What follows is an immaculately paced thriller where something as simple as a bend in the road becomes life-or-death for some surprisingly endearing characters. Credit to writer Graham Yost for continually coming up with new ways to keep the bus in question from having too easy of a time—even after it receives a police escort.
The threats posed to the bus and its passengers feel natural for the most part, and there is delicious logic to how Jack and the officers figure out how to best handle the situation. There is really only one physics-breaking ‘movie moment’ that ruined my immersion in the film (one involving an unfinished highway…) but apart from that, I was invested.
Between the drama amongst the passengers on the bus, the tension involved in keeping the bus over 50mph, the police investigation to track down who’s behind this, and the phone conversations between Jack and the perpetrator, Speed manages to create several distinct sources of conflict. For what I honestly expected to be a one-trick-pony of a movie, it has surprising variety.
To the End of the Line
Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock are great, too, and I think this is the first really good movie I’ve seen Bullock in. She’s excellent and manages to convey some of the movie’s funniest lines without sacrificing the tension of the situation or betraying the very real stress her character Annie is under, especially after she’s forced to take over as the bus driver.
Reeves also seems to inject a certain amount of his own persona into his character. Jack is cool. Jack is kind. Jack is trying to do his job well and remains impressively calm under pressure. Of course, this is all to the benefit of making the moments where he does lose his cool really pop.
I’ve heard many people slander Keanu Reeves over the years for his inexpressive, somewhat robotic acting and line deliveries. To them I say, ‘Have you not seen Speed?’ Maybe Reeves can’t cry on command or modulate his voice to sound anything but like the coolest motherfucker to ever exist, but in the right role, he’s unparalleled.
Bullock and Reeves actually have a bit of chemistry too, even if the whole idea of a romance between them feels a little forced in the beginning, like the screenwriter ticking a box. I was delighted when, in the third act, their relationship actually paid off in a climax that I won’t spoil (hey, I can’t be the only one not to have seen Speed in 2024!).
All I’ll say is that it did that wonderful thing that great movies do where you think you’ve reached the end of the movie, only for it to take an unexpected twist and keep on going, raising the stakes even further and building to a whole new climax.
Always Say Thanks to the Driver
I’m glad I finally got around to watching Speed. If this is the movie that made Sandra Bullock who she is today, then we all owe it a debt of thanks.
Why not say thanks by giving it a watch? Whether you haven't seen it before or see it once a year, this is your sign to watch The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down.
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