Wow! That didn’t totally suck! “Faster”

So, I guess the planets all lined up right, or maybe the end times are upon us or something, but for once a movie actually exceeded my expectations. That’s rare. Really rare. Like see-a-falling-star/Charlie-Sheen-is-sober-today rare. I sat in the movie theater thinking: What movie am I here to see again? Oh yeah, Faster…ugh! Why am I waiting to see this? Oh yeah, raspberry popcorn.  Then the movie began and by the time I got to the scene where the yoga-practicing hit man is revealed to have been a crippled child, and is now an insane overachiever, something wonderful something amazing happened: I realized the movie didn’t totally suck.  It’s not great by any stretch of the imagination, but for an action flick catering to the Creatine-pounding, steroids-and-tribal-tattoo crowd, it’s a remarkably substantial piece of storytelling.

Faster’s story is about as straightforward as a sniper’s shot. Basically, you have this dude—known only as Driver (Dwayne Johnson—eschewing “The Rock” this time around), is just sprung from prison after a ten-year stretch for being the wheelman in a bank robbery. He’s also the only survivor of the massacre of his heist crew—including the gutting of his beloved brother. Now, after a year in joint, and pockmarked by the scars of the gunshot that should have taken his life, he sets out to follow the teachings of the Buddha, and forgive the sins of a broken world.

Ha! No, he’s gonna totally kill everybody who set up his crew.

Hot on his trail is a pair of detectives, Cicero (Carla Gugino, who appears to be morphing into her “bull dyke” phase of life), and…um, Cop (okay, the movie does this dumbass thing where it only identifies certain characters by their job title, so just bear with me here). Oh, uh, Cop is played by Billy Bob Thornton at his most manorexic, which works for him, since he’s got a bit of a heroin habit. He also has a crumbling personal life—estranged from his ex-wife/ex-snitch/ex-junkie (Moon Bloodgood–yet another woman too hot for Billy Bob Thornton) who got him hooked on the stuff, and now wants him to get clean and help take care of the sentient blob of cookie dough that is their son. Cop is ten days away from retirement (and really, really needs the pension and benefits) when this case drops into his lap. So, you know that’s gonna turn out (sorta).

Also on his trail is the aforementioned hit man, simply called Killer (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), who has been hired by the guy who arranged the ambush of Driver’s crew. Killer is, as I mentioned, a freaking lunatic alpha dog, who has, apparently, made millions in software, climbs mountains, wins marathons, sails in the America’s Cup, and…I dunno…maybe walked on the moon once.  He does challenging things, and he surmounts those challenges and moves on, perpetually looking for new worlds to conquer. The hired-assassin gig is no different. When Driver bests him in a close-quarters gun battle and escapes, Killer is positively thrilled at the prospect of this hunt. He’s like the spawn of Amy Chua and Vincent  from Collateral.

From here, the movie is a three-way chase, with Driver hunting down his brother’s killers, while trying to figure out who set them up. Cicero and Cop are doing the same thing from other end. And Killer is just hunting Driver and doesn’t care why.

Yeah, it’s a shopworn storyline, but writers Joe and Tony Gayton have fleshed out these characters and their world enough to make them interesting enough to follow. Cop is a decent detectives beneath his loud shirts and dun-colored suits  (QUESTION: does drug abuse make you lose all sense of style, or does style-blindness cause drug abuse? Discuss). He’s also a genuinely caring dad and misses his ex-wife. Likewise, Killer is exposed to be riding the very edge of his type-A personality and facing down the attendant ennui. He’s also perplexed by his relationship with his girlfriend, Lily (Maggie Grace), and his warring impulses to marry her and face yet another challenge, versus continuing killing people for money. He spends long periods of surveillance discussing this with his therapist on Bluetooth. Oh and he’s also gone off his meds. So there’s that.

Finally, there is Driver, and here I was prepared to be disappointed. In Be Cool and even the otherwise-moronic Southland Tales, Dwayne Johnson has shown a real talent for supplementing his massive physique with a light comedic touch, in much the same way Arnold Schwarzenegger did before he was governating California. I thought that putting Johnson at the center of a grim revenge-drama would be a waste of that talent. And, yeah, Johnson doesn’t utilize his comedic skills much, but he turn in a surprisingly nuanced performance. Driver is not a career criminal, but a guy who has always been dealt a bad hand and is now avenging the only person who ever looked out for him. Johnson gets little dialogue, but does an excellent job conveying Driver’s spiritual crisis as his reservations about his mission build up.

Faster’s refusal to indulge in catch-phrases, hip-hop posturing, or other man-child trappings (*coughTakerscough*), and its determination for all of its characters to remain on the hook for their respective decisions and choices makes it a great throwback to the noir of pulp writers like James M. Cain, Jim Thompson, and early Elmore Lenoard. It also joins the limited canon of effective, no-frills crime movies like City of Industry and The Long Good Friday.

So there you have it: a nice, unexpected surprise. Karma’s a bitch, though, so I’m sure the next movie I watch will make me want to swallow my tongue.