Keanu Reeves Action Movie Speed Coming to Max in September

Before CGI spectacles took over in the 2000s, action movies in the 1990s were still chasing the success of 1988’s Die Hard. Steven Seagal’s Under Siege was basically Die Hard on a battleship. Wesley Snipes’ Passenger 57 was Die Hard on a plane. Harrison Ford’s Air Force One was Die Hard on a very specific plane. The very best Die Hard rip-off, however, was the one that, on paper, sounds the least exciting: Die Hard on a bus.

Directed by Jan de Bont, Speed is a 1994 action movie starring Point Break-era Keanu Reeves as LAPD cop Jack Traven. Jack and his partner Harry Temple, played by Jeff Daniels, recently thwarted a plot by a mad bomber played by Dennis Hopper. To get revenge, the bomber blows up a bus right in front of Jack. He then calls Jack on a payphone to tell him another bus also has an explosive on it. The bomber explains that the device will be armed once it hits 50 miles per hour, and it will explode once the bus falls below 50 miles per hour. The bomber demands $3.7 million in less than three hours, and Jack may not let anyone off the bus until the money is delivered.

The bomber gives Jack the bus number and its location. Once Jack boards the bus, he must explain the situation to the passengers and try to calm them down. When the bus driver gets injured, Jack gets help from a passenger, Annie Porter, played by Sandra Bullock, who takes over as the driver. From there, the two of them must keep the bus above 50 miles per hour while also trying to defuse the bomb.

Speed remains a cult classic

Speed works because there are so many basic things going for it. Keanu Reeves is a charming and likable actor. He manages to give off the same everyman energy that Bruce Willis had as John McClane in Die Hard, but the Los Angeles vibes Reeves brings feel nothing like Willis playing a New York tough guy. Even though Speed is considered a Die Hard rip-off, it does not feel that way while watching it.

Sandra Bullock is also excellent and smartly cast as a capable person in the situation, as opposed to a more typical damsel in distress, which was especially common in 1990s cinema. Reeves and Bullock also had excellent chemistry together, perhaps because, as they both admitted later, they had real-life crushes on each other. The movie never gets sidetracked by the obvious attraction between these characters. By the nature of the premise, the movie never slows down enough to distract itself from the imminent threat of the bomb.

Dennis Hopper also makes a fantastic villain. The menacing, plotting mad bomber who mostly interacts over the phone is completely captivating. At the time, Hopper was far more established than the leads of the film, and he is used perfectly and sparingly.

The real secret weapon of Speed is director Jan de Bont. While Speed was the Dutch filmmaker’s directorial debut, he had previously been an accomplished cinematographer. In addition to shooting movies like Basic Instinct, Lethal Weapon 3, and The Hunt for Red October, de Bont was the cinematographer for Die Hard. He learned the right lessons from Die Hard and applied them to the screenplay written by Graham Yost, who also wrote Broken Arrow and Justified. De Bont duplicated this success with his next film, Twister, in 1996. After that, his career faltered and he never reached the same level again, but that does not change the fact that he created two of the best action films of the 1990s.

For Speed, de Bont was aided by editor John Wright, who previously edited The Hunt for Red October and The Running Man and later edited the best Die Hard sequel, Die Hard with a Vengeance.

With an easy-to-grasp idea, Speed has the perfect premise for an action movie. Since the bus literally cannot slow down, neither can the movie, and it stays exciting every step of the way. A bus is also the perfect setting, as it allows for a lot of people in danger from all walks of life. With tight, clear direction, sharp editing, and huge explosions done practically, Speed lets you feel the heat and the tension without ever letting up.

That is why you should check out Speed while it is available on HBO Max. In an era dominated by CGI, and when nearly every big action movie puts the whole world in danger, Speed is a meat-and-potatoes thriller in the best way possible featuring leads you care about, a villain you fear, and a perfectly paced story that never lets its foot off the gas.

Source: Polygon