Truly Outrageous

This post is about Hollywood’s approach to the midlife crisis, although some of you might not be wrong if you think it’s my love letter to a mid-90s action film called Speed.

Thirteen years later, this film is still a trashy joy, much like another Keanu Reeves film and Sunday evening favorite of mine, The Devil’s Advocate. But while that film takes the inevitable and easy route and features Al Pacino as Satan, Speed stays a little closer to the ground with its villain: a disgruntled retired police officer living in Los Angeles.

When I was eleven, this movie was my favoritest movie ever. In it, I found my first Justin Timberlake, Keanu Reeves. I also found Ferris Bueller’s friend Cameron as a hick yokel, Jeff ‘Dumber’ Daniels as The Sidekick, and the actress who would one day utter the words ‘I’m beginning to doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion’ fulfilling the ultimate non-young woman role: the stressed-out lady who goes a little wonky and, thank goodness, dies.

But let’s not lose sight of what this film is really about (and no, it’s not Sandra Bullock! Ever since the sequel she’s been dead to me). This film is about the sham that is the American dream for decent, hardworking white dudes. Dennis Hopper plays Howard Payne, a former police officer who is living on disability and bitterness after getting a thumb blown off in the line of duty. Hey, opposable thumbs were a big step on the path to human innovation! So if you lose a thumb, maybe you lose some humanity. Am I right?

Of course not, but stuff’s gotta get blown up, Keanu’s been working out, and this film represents a time when we could still make jokes in movies like ‘So what did we do to this guy, did we bomb his country or something?’ Oh, Sandra Bullock. Weren’t you just in a movie called Premonition?

I love the dynamic between Keanu, excuse me, Jack Traven, and Howard Payne. Jack’s a cocky so-and-so who thinks with his cock, excuse me, his biceps. Howard Payne knows where that road leads, and he’s going to teach Jack a lesson. Howard’s so disappointed in the way society is going: in the end, everyone is a bottom line. [The ad on the back of the infamous bus reads 'MONEY ISN'T EVERYTHING. (YEAH, RIGHT.)'] He’s decided to take it literally and try to hold some people for ransom — first in an elevator, then on a couple of buses, and finally on the subway. If you run out of time, gas, highway, or train track — you’re dead! Howard’s philosphy about money doesn’t leave out class analysis, either: ‘Poor people are crazy, Jack. I’m eccentric.’

Besides the fact that everyone in this film calls Keanu, oops my bad, Jack ’stupid’ multiple times, my other favorite hit-us-over-the-head joke is the prevalence of the number 50. As we all know, the bus has to ’stay above fifty’ or it will explode. The bus number is 2525. And the big gap of highway — our big leap of faith as viewers — is fifty feet! Oh, it’s beautiful. And the central theme of speed. Time’s running out! One day you’ll be old and unappreciated.

There’s no way I’m going to attempt a Nezuan feat here and give you screenshot analyses (although, as the themes are similar, click over if you haven’t read his critique of the film Falling Down. Is it a coincidence these films are a year apart?). But it’s all here: the Hispanic Guy Who Committed Some Crime and Carries a Gun on Public Transportation; the other Assorted Ethnic Types to meet mid-90s PC quotas; the Black Police Captain who doesn’t do much besides offer words of wisdom to our hero, like ‘Don’t get dead’; and my favorite, the spunky independent woman who, in the end, can’t escape the pole. The pole on the train! You know, the one you grab onto for balance! Sheesh. Of course, our clever villain assures her that ‘it’s not because you’re a woman’.

The thing about this movie is you know stupid Keanu — Pete’s sake, that’s the third time now! — Jack Traven has to win. He’s hot, and he and Annie (SB’s character) can’t make out while she’s driving a bus at high speed. Dennis Hopper is old, and he played that freaky dude in Blue Velvet. But you want him to win! You love his maniacal laughter, his dexterity with explosives, and his insolence towards Jack, whom he refers to as a ‘hotshot’ and a ‘punk’. You find yourself almost agreeing when he goes off on what’s wrong with kids today:

In 200 years, we’ve come from ‘I regret that I have but one life to give for my country’, to ‘Fuck you’?!

Seriously! This is America! You kids don’t appreciate what you got! And guess what, nobody appreciates you, either. Especially if you’re a cop in LA (there’s a great joke about that, too, in which the yokel says ‘Of course they’re going to help us! They’re the police!’ Response from the rest of the bus: incredulous silence). But really, if you’re an older white man in America, life is tough.