It has been nearly a year since Breaking Bad left our screens in a blaze of glory and almost universal praise (apart from the criticism levelled at the show by Oliver Stone – who felt the show did not authenticate violence in a realistic way) and in that time Aaron Paul has managed to star in a Nick Hornby adaptation – the poorly received A Long Way Down with Pierce Brosnan, Imogen Poots and Toni Collette – and race fast cars in Need for Speed with Dominic Cooper, Imogen Poots (again) and Kid Cudi. Paul’s career has, ironically, stalled over the course of both of these films, primarily – I assume – due the lack of ‘yeah bitch!’ dialogic occurrences in the script for either.
Need for Speed is essentially a high-octane, all-action movie and therefore requires no major character developments, in-depth studies into human nature or clever plot twists; it just needs the cars to be fast, and the cast to look cool, which it succeeds with. Aaron Paul is a fantastic leading man and, although it’s a shame he hasn’t found himself in a meatier role since Breaking Bad ended, essentially is the main reason the film is passable. He shows all the angst necessary to drive at high speeds, whilst maintaining a broody outlook due to the mid-race death of his grease-monkey friend being attributed to himself, rather than pantomime villain Dominic Cooper – playing bad-boy Dino, and doing a rather fine job of it. After two years in prison for involuntary manslaughter, Paul is released and heads out to gain vengeance in the only way he knows how, by illegal street-racing. Murder attempts ensue as redemption finds itself in the distance.
Where Need for Speed fails, dramatically, is in its insistence that the audience shouldn’t really enjoy watching it, the set pieces lack all sense of fun and major characters come across as rather idiotic and shallow. In a genre dominated by the Fast & Furious films, fun seems to be the essential ingredient as to whether the audience appreciates the movie or not, unfortunately Need for Speed fails to find any charm within its over-wrought, serious endeavours, and spectacularly crash-lands with a rather plodding storyline. Kid Cudi tries to lighten things up with some comic relief, and though it seem she may have something of an acting career on his hands – check him out in the cancelled-too-soon TV series How to Make it in America – he can’t seem to help inject the film with any semblance of the humour it needs.
All in all, Need for Speed ticks all the right boxes in terms of aesthetic and lead actor, but it falls flat in a lot of other departments, namely the ‘yeah, bitch!’ department.
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