Keanu Reeves Action Thriller Starts Streaming on Netflix

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. And Harrison Ford’s Air Force One was Die Hard on a very specific plane. The very best Die Hard rip-off though 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. The bomber then calls Jack on a payphone and tells 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 dollars in less than three hours, and Jack, who is allowed to board the bus, may not let anyone off until the money is delivered.

The bomber gives Jack the bus number and its location. Once Jack boards the bus, he explains the situation to the passengers and tries to calm them down. When the bus driver gets injured, Jack gets help from a passenger named 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 works because there are many basic elements 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 to the film feel different from Willis as a New York tough guy. Even though Speed is considered a Die Hard knockoff, 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 traditional damsel in distress. Reeves and Bullock shared strong chemistry, as they both admitted later, because they had real-life crushes on each other. Regardless, the movie never gets sidetracked by the obvious attraction between the characters. Due to the nature of the premise, the narrative 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 effectively 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, 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 Die Hard sequel Die Hard with a Vengeance.

With an easy-to-grasp idea, Speed has the ideal 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 serves as an effective setting because it packs people from all walks of life into danger. With tight direction, sharp editing, and large practical explosions, Speed lets audiences feel the heat and tension without letting up.

Viewers can check out Speed while it is available on Netflix. In an era dominated by CGI, when nearly every big action movie puts the whole world in danger, Speed remains a straightforward thriller featuring leads you care about, a villain you fear, and a well-paced story that never takes its foot off the gas.

Source: Polygon