Directed by:
George Tillman Jr.Cinematography:
Michael GradyComposer:
Clint MansellCast:
Dwayne Johnson, Billy Bob Thornton, Maggie Grace, Moon Bloodgood, Carla Gugino, Jennifer Carpenter, Tom Berenger, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (more)VOD (1)
Plots(1)
A stint in prison usually has one of two effects on a man – it either breaks him down or makes him stronger. For Driver (Dwayne Johnson), a 15-year sentence proved the latter. His strength was not just fueled by time, but also by a hunger to avenge the murder of his brother during the botched bank robbery that led to his own imprisonment. Untouchable on the ‘inside,’ he made plenty of enemies in prison - men who were counting the days until his release so they could exact their own revenge on the outside. Now, on the day of his release, he is hell-bent on reaping vengeance upon the four men responsible for his brother’s murder. With a list of names and addresses in hand, he sprints out of the prison gates and is immediately on his mission.
No regard for witnesses. No finesse to the acts. One down. Check. Within hours of Driver eliminating the first name on the list, two men are on his trail – Cop (Billy Bob Thornton), a veteran police officer just days from retirement, and Killer, a young egocentric hitman with a flair for the art of killing. The hunter is now also the hunted. Without hesitation, Driver methodically continues down his list while the mystery deepens surrounding his brother’s murder and who might have tipped off those responsible to their robbery plans. With each killing, Driver finds himself face to face with Cop or Killer and he evades them every time. Killer wants Driver now more than ever – he’s finally met a worthy opponent. Thus begins a do or die race to the list’s finish with new details in the 15-year old murder emerging along the way... hinting that Driver’s list may be incomplete and his life in further danger. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Reviews (4)
The Rock, the silent god of vengeance, wreaks vengeance for his brother's death without blinking an eye. That phrase excites every fan of proper action films, which turned into massive horniness after the trailers. Yet the result is the biggest fucking-over of the audience since cinema began. Where is the anger, the lack of compromise, the roughness, the stylishness,... everything?! Something so desperately boring, despite the minimum of words, and overall incredibly "I don't know what to do" style hasn't been made here for years. The Rock doesn't fit the role (he looks like an idiot!), O. J. Cohen is a terrible killer (I want Ian Somerhalder!) and... it’s all bad. My heart has never bled with disappointment like it did after watching Faster.
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A thriller about revenge, which probably had bigger ambitions, but failed miserably due to a desperately predictable and overly dragged-out script, which will not surprise fans and will probably disgust them as well. The action is dull, and everything else, except for Billy Bob Thornton in the role of a drug-addicted cop who has long switched sides he fights for, is not worth mentioning either. But in the end, even Thornton only does what he has done before, and better, elsewhere. Objectively, it's a film that deserves two stars, but the miraculous resurrection of the hero falls precisely into the kind of scenes that can drive me to the highest level of annoyance. Overall impression: 30%.
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What a swindle! Where are those action scenes from the trailers? Faster isn't bad, but I feel cheated because the psychological ride around the motivation of the self-proclaimed avenger could have been better. The most annoying passages, which were without substance and superfluous to the story, concerning the second killer, are justifiable only for Maggie Grace in her elegant underwear. Although the Rock is superb here, his release from jail at the beginning promised so much more. Well, at least the music was worth it.
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This roles don’t suit The Rock very well and I much prefer his comedic, or rather, action-oriented grimaces, rather than the pissed-off ones. As a result, the entire backbone of this film is fundamentally flawed, because that should be the main thing that the film should rely on. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. It’s woefully lacking action, a wannabe cool and poorly executed thing that at one moment pretends to be raw and uncompromising (several action scenes with The Rock), but two seconds later switches to a “stylish” (dysfunctional) ride (a young couple of assassins), where the motivations of the main characters are hardly understandable for the viewer. And just when I start accepting that this film won't be anything groundbreaking, but I will manage to watch it until the end in good health, I'm hit with a fatal blow to the head at the end, which would even confuse the creators of The Sixth Sense. If Micheal Mann had directed it, it could have turned out much better.
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