Speed (1994)
Directed by Jan de Bont
Tensions run high when a crazed bomber rigs a Los Angeles bus with a device that will kill everyone on board if the vehicle's speed dips below fifty miles per hour.
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A cinematographer for more than 30 years, De Bont has worked frequently with fellow Dutchman Paul Verhoeven and has been behind the camera on such big-time action pictures as "Die Hard," "The Hunt for Red October," "Black Rain" and "Lethal Weapon 3."
"Speed," directed by Jan De Bont (cinematographer on "Die Hard" and "Lethal Weapon 3"), isn't a movie so much as a driver's-seat video game.
First-time director De Bont (cameraman of Die Hard and Basic Instinct) makes good use of a hand-held camera and conveys a real sense of volition: you'll believe a bus can fly!
Yes, it's "Die Hard" on a bus, but that's a pretty good bloodline.
He conspicuously lacks charm -- he has none of the bemused irony that made Alan Rickman's terrorist so deliciously attractive in "Die Hard."
The directorial debut of acclaimed cinematographer Jan De Bont, Speed--made for the paltry (considering the complexity of the shoot: real elevator shafts; real freeway lanes; real subway cars) sum of $28 million--is nothing less than a thing of alchemy: De Bont would go on to helm the abominations Twister, Speed 2: Cruise Control, and The Haunting ; screenwriter Graham Yost (son of TVOntario's "Saturday Night at the Movies" host Elwy Yost) subsequently scripted Broken Arrow (John Woo's worst film) and Hard Rain (a steaming turd); Reeves and Bullock last gave us Sweet November and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood , respectively; and if the sub-genre of Die Hard rip-offs had run its course by the time Speed came around, consider that Speed is, after all, Die Hard on a bus, a claustrophobic one-man-against-one-terrorist-in-a-limited-location thriller.
And in action terms, there isn't a moment in this hackneyed melodrama that De Bont and scriptwriter Graham Yost haven't lifted from other, more successful movies, including "In the Line of Fire," "Die Hard" (both 1 and 2), "The Fugitive" and the Gene Hackman runaway-train movie, "Narrow Margin."
(Op cit, "Narrow Margin," "Thunderball," "Patriot Games," "In the Line of Fire," to name but a few.)
…it's like The Wages of Fear redone at roller-coaster tempo.
The result is clean, delirious, and, yes, speedy—the best big-vehicle-in-peril movie since Clouzot’s “The Wages of Fear.”
De Bont (who performed director of photography duty on everything from Die Hard to The Hunt for Red October) keeps the plot holes to a minimum, but honestly, I may have missed a few thanks to the fact that I was squinting through all the fireballs half the time.
A cinematographer for more than 30 years, De Bont has worked frequently with fellow Dutchman Paul Verhoeven and has been behind the camera on such big-time action pictures as "Die Hard," "The Hunt for Red October," "Black Rain" and "Lethal Weapon 3."