A short, short look at the movie, Faster, starring Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock)

I was getting ready to go to bed last night as I flipped through the channels on my TV. I happened to get Showtime as Faster, starring Dwayne Johnson, was beginning. Now, Dwayne Johnson is generally known to most people as The Rock. That's certainly how I know him from his long years in wrestling to his first acting role in The Mummy Returns. Anyway, I decided to watch the first few minutes of the movie and then hit the sack. Instead, I ended up watching the entire film and enjoying it, too.

Dwayne plays a character known as the Driver. He was the driver for his brother during a bank robbery. Later, the entire crew was killed by others who'd been hired to steal the money from them. The Driver was shot in the head, but he managed to live. He then spent ten years in jail for the bank robbery. When he finally gets out, he goes after the guys who murdered his brother, killing each of them with no emotion and in front of others. He only cares about revenge and not the final outcome of his bloody mission.

The unknown man who originally sent in the killers to wipe out the crew hires a professional assassin to go after Dwayne Johnson, and this guy is damn good. The thing is the Rock is better and he knows it. Because of that and his past history, you begin to see the assassin as a human being and to understand where he's coming from. For some strange reason you don't want to see either him or the Rock die at the end.

As the Driver tracks each killer down and administers justice for what they did, he gets more intuned with the hatred that has fueled his life for so long and realizes it's destroying him. Can he change his need for vengeance before he completes his mission? You have to see the movie to find out.

Billy Bob Thornton plays the cop who's after the Driver. This a great performance by Billy Bob, especially when he's dealing with his son and the wife he's separated from.

Tom Berringer even has a small role as the warden of the prison.

Surprisingly, I really liked the movie. The stunt driving was excellent, the cold-blooded killing was in your face and totally realistic, the lead character was someone you eventually learned to care about and wanted to see still alive by the end of the film, and the supporting actors were all excellent in their own particular roles. There were even a few twists I didn't see coming and caught me completely off guard. I did guess who the head killer was, only because that's how I would have done the script myself.

This a nice little gem of a movie that isn't pretentious and caught me by surprise. I suspect I'll purchase it for my movie collection before Christmas. Highly recommended!