Classic Movie Review: 'Speed'

Speed is a near perfect action movie. Starring Keanu Reeves as Jack Traven, a member of the LAPD bomb squad, Speed crafts a nearly non-stop thrill ride while delivering characters we find easy to care about and root for. Co-starring with Reeves was Sandra Bullock in the role that would make her a superstar. Annie is a plucky every-woman and Bullock radiates star power and charisma in the role. Bullock is so good in Speed that she makes the previously wooden Reeves look like the movie star Hollywood claimed he was in 1994.

Speed sets its scene in Los Angeles. A group of nameless executives have completed a meeting and are retiring to the elevator. That’s when a mad man named Howard Payne, iconically performed by Dennis Hopper, takes them hostage by stopping the elevator and telling police that he will use explosives to drop the elevator and kill everyone inside if he is not given $3 million dollars at a specific place and time.

Arriving first on the scene from the Los Angeles Police Department are Jack (Reeves) and Harry (Jeff Daniels). Long time partners, Jack and Harry banter while still treating the situation with seriousness. They have a gallows style of humor that most in their profession have in order to cope with the ungodly stress of working around bombs. Thus it isn’t the least bit inappropriate when they are quizzing each other on trivia while determining the seriousness of the bomb they are dealing with.

Jack comes up with a quick witted solution. They can’t disarm the bombs before the bomber can set them off so they need to buy time. Having noticed a construction crane on top of the building, they feed a cable from the crane into the elevator shaft and hook it to the top of the elevator. Just as they’ve completed this harebrained scheme, the bombs go off and should send the elevator hurtling to the ground. Thankfully, the crane holds long enough to break into the car and get the passengers out.

Having foiled the plot, Jack and Harry go looking for the bomber on the assumption that he must still be in the building, having seemingly guessed what they were up to after the elevator didn’t crash and kill everyone inside. They encounter the, at this point, unnamed bomber and Jack ends up shooting Harry in the leg to get a clear shot at the bomber only for him to still escape and leave them thinking he’d blown himself up.

Cut to what we assume is several days later. Jack is getting coffee and greeting the bus driver he sees every morning at his favorite coffee shop. The driver leaves to start his route while Jack gets in his car to leave. Suddenly, the bus explodes. Jack runs toward the explosion but it’s far too late. Then a payphone rings and Jack runs to answer. It’s the madman. He has a game for Jack, another bus is rigged to explode. Once the bus reaches 50 miles per hour, a bomb will be triggered but will only explode once the bus drops below 50 miles per hour.

The bomber tells Jack which bus it is and Jack races to try and stop it before it can get to 50 miles per hour. Naturally, he fails but still finds a clever and dangerous way to get on the bus. From there, the bus driver is shot and nearly killed by a paranoid passenger and Annie (Bullock) jumps into the driver’s seat. And from here our story will truly play out as they keep the bus over 50 while running into seemingly endless complications.

Speed was directed by Jan De Bont in his first directing effort. Before Speed, De Bont was a famed cinematographer on movies such as The Hunt for Red October, Die Hard, and Basic Instinct. De Bont’s style is slick, polished and fast paced. The pace of Speed is truly a key to the film’s success. Speed matches it’s title in pace as it never slows down. This is smart because if the film were to slow down for too long, we’d begin poking holes in the plot and the various pieces of action in Speed.

The pace is one key while Reeves and Bullock are the other keys. Reeves and Bullock have an immediate and inviting chemistry. These are two beautiful people who are also decent, funny, and capable. Bullock is the standout as her radiant star power makes everyone around her better. That’s especially true of Reeves who, prior to Speed, and even immediately after Speed, has a tendency to come off as awkward or stiff on screen, especially when he’s trying to be folksy or relatable.

Something about working with Bullock in Speed gives Reeves a lighter touch, a confidence and affability that he has lacked in many of his other starring roles. Smart directors have used Reeves' alien qualities to great effect like The Matrix or John Wick where he’s not called on to be a typical human being. Working opposite Sandra Bullock in Speed suddenly made Keanu feel human, warmer and more relatable than he’d ever been, and has ever been since.

The chemistry between Reeves and Bullock is the lasting legacy of Speed. Their iconic pairing has kept Speed in the conversation about action movies and great movies of the 1990s since 1994 when the film exploded into theaters and delighted audiences with a rollercoaster ride of action with a side of affable, palpable romance. Speed was the classic on the July 5th edition of the Everyone’s a Critic Podcast which you can listen to here.