“Speed” takes its cue from a lot of action movies with its thinly painted and easily predictable characters. Reeves plays Jack Traven, a SWAT officer that’s a wildcard in terms of playing by the rules. His mentor (Jeff Daniels) quizzes him during their daring missions, though Jack usually gets the job done his own way. Reeves was coming into his own as a top listed star around this time, though one notoriously panned for his acting skills, or lack thereof. As Jack Traven, Reeves earns every bit of his bad acting rep. He delivers lines in such a stilted manner, it’s painfully distracting to watch. That he’s playing an LAPD SWAT officer but looks like a surfer who just washed in from Huntington Beach can be chalked up to Hollywood selling a heartthrob to the audience. Luckily, he pulls off this cartoonish hero role quite well. He can’t act, but it’s enjoyable to watch him not act, if that makes sense.
“Speed” also introduces us to Sandra Bullock. Just 30 years old at the time, Bullock’s breakout would come here with her character Annie Porter, an average citizen who ends up driving the doomed bus, a bus she is coincidentally riding due to having lost her license for, you guessed it, speeding. Bullock is great to watch in all of her films. The mid-90s saw her rise to fame in movies such as “While You Were Sleeping” and “A Time to Kill.” She’s adorable and quirky in a Generation-X sort of way, and while not the superstar she would later become, it’s easy to see why fans have fallen in love with her over the years.
Jack and Annie are stuck on a city bus rigged with a bomb that’s been placed by a criminal mastermind (Dennis Hopper) who is more like a villain out of Gotham City than real life. “Pop quiz, hotshot.” The bomber taunts Jack in a great early scene at a payphone. “There’s a bomb on a bus. Once the bus goes 50 miles an hour, the bomb is armed. If it drops below 50, it blows up. What do you do? What do you do…?”
“Speed” has so many flaws and plot holes it’s actually fun to point them out as you watch. The very idea that the bomber is a genius who takes years to craft his devices yet would waste his talent blowing up a city bus is hysterical in its own right. That he jokes with the cops trying to stop him like it’s a chess match just makes him perfect as what he is – a bad guy. Simple. While it’s a straight up action-thriller, it’s filled with humor at every turn, with Reeves and Bullock equally enjoyable to watch and laugh with. Supporting roles are handled nicely by Glenn Plummer, Carlos Carrasco, and a highly comical passenger on the bus played by Alan Ruck – just eight years removed from his memorable role in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
“Speed” is a great movie. That it was nominated for three Academy Awards and won two is a testament to how underrated it is in the backdrop of 90s action movies. It’s a guilty pleasure that has definite repeat value. You may hate yourself for loving it, but you’ll be doing so with a smile.
