“Need for Speed”

Rated PG-13 for sequences of reckless street racing, disturbing crash scenes, nudity and crude language 

“Fresh from prison, a street racer who was framed by a wealthy business associate joins a cross country race with revenge in mind. His ex-partner, learning of the plan, places a massive bounty on his head as the race begins.” (Extracted from Need for Speed promotional material.)

Extracted from the stream of consciousness of Steve W. Schaefer, Film Reviewer:

“Need for Speed.” I can’t believe I am seeing this movie. Did I see it before? It seems so familiar, like a pain-in-my-tooth familiar. Ex-con, framed (isn’t everybody who is convicted?), revenge, the visual “fragrance” of oil and gasoline, powerful roaring engines, pretty women who go for all that but without meth-teeth, dirty hair, and profoundly fractured grammar and syntax, helicopters, cars with greater value than the GNP of many small nations, police cars, mumbling characters, and for more pathos we have a recently dead daddy and potential foreclosure on a garage (did I get that right?). May I have some more manipulative claptrap please?

Oh dear, there are two characters, one named Dino and another named Dominic. Both use hair gel. This is about a cross-country race to get to a race, where is Burt Reynolds when you want to see him?

Is this an infomercial for a computer game? Why, I think it is. But I bet the game has better actors. It has to, even if the actors are stick figures stuck behind steering wheels.

The “chick” in this movie has a British accent. I suppose that makes this a foreign art film. And her name is really Imogene Poots. Poots? That poor girl got a lot of teasing in school, but, surely, not as much grief as she deserves in being in this car wreck of a movie.

I wonder what I am going to eat tonight. I think my house chef, who is snoring right now, might claim the finger food I had at our friend’s gathering this afternoon constitutes a full buffet and it will be crackers and butter tonight.

 

Oh look, one of the cars nearly ran over a homeless man — that is so funny. Oh, my sides hurt from guffawing. Wait, I think I saw that in a silent movie once, when it was OK for careless drivers to run over people.

Is that character ever going to take the toothpick out of his mouth? Can there be one more cliché? Do gearheads have any standards in their movies?  Does this genre required a plot?  Is something going to make me think, wow, this is why everything has been so mundane up until now — to set me up for a real clincher?  I fear I may be a tad disappointed. It doesn’t look like this race is going anywhere.

Oh my goodness, that guy in the third row: does he look like he lives in his grandmother’s basement and plays video games all day or what?

This is actually a piece of dialogue from the film: “They took everything from me. I do not fear, for you are with me. All those who defied me shall be ashamed and disgraced. Those who wage war against me shall perish. I will find strength, find guidance, and I will triumph!” Is that from the Old Testament?  Because if it isn’t, and it is not a Shakespeare quote, I think the screenwriter needs to be put away. No trial, just dispatch him to a far away federal facility…because hearing that is tantamount to terroristic torture.

Oh, the film is over? I never realized that two hours and 10 minutes could feel like seven hours and 20 minutes.

One half of a bow tie out of five and that is only because I experienced about 15 seconds of an adrenaline rush … or was that the spicy mustard I had with the finger food?