Braking bad

Aaron Paul, of Breaking Bad fame, takes his first post-Bad big step into the limelight as a lead actor in Need for Speed, a big screen adaptation of the popular video game series.

Paul is a good actor, but he’s miscast here as Tobey Marshall, a street racer looking for revenge after doing time for a crime he didn’t commit—actually, for a crime he sort of didn’t commit.

Wait … now that I’m actually writing about this, I realize he’s pretty much guilty of the crime even though the movie tries to pass him off as innocent. Man, this movie is stupid as all hell.

Tobey has an auto mechanic shop that tries to do big racecar jobs that command big dollar paydays. He also moonlights as a street racer, one of those jackasses who blaze around in hot rods on public streets endangering the lives of other drivers and pedestrians.

See, the basic problem with a film like this is that the central, supposed hero is a big moron. It’s hard to get behind a character with such a reckless disregard for others, whose joyriding causes major catastrophes while he cackles with glee because he’s going really, really fast in a really, really neat car. OK, enough of my pontificating.

Tobey’s nemesis, Dino (Dominic Cooper), walks into his shop and offers him the chance to build a super Mustang for a big cut. Tobey hates Dino, but he needs the dough, so he takes the gig. When all is said and done, the two wind up drag racing for the entire profit on the car, with Tobey’s Justin Bieber look-alike pal Little Pete (Harrison Gilbertson) racing in his own car. Little Pete winds up wiping out and dying thanks to a high speed bump from Dino, who proceeds to flee the scene.

Tobey winds up taking the heat for Little Pete’s death. I say he damn well should take part of the rap because he was engaged in a street race that got his buddy killed, even if he didn’t do the fatal move that caused the crash. Here I go pontificating again.

Anyways, Tobey does some serious time, and he’s looking for some payback when he gets out of jail. Circumstances lead to him racing across the country in the Mustang he built with hot Imogen Poots in the passenger seat. They do all sorts of crazy crap on their cross-country trek, including flying the car through the air to avoid police during one particular chase. It’s an absolutely impossible feat, but I admit it looked cool.

I caught a 3-D screening of the film, and the 3-D is put to rather good use. There are plenty of shots from the inside of cars looking over the steering wheel and through the windshield, making it feel like you are engaged in a real race. When Little Pete meets his twisty end, the whole thing is shown from the inside of the car, and it’s a nifty trick.

As for the drama and plot, this one ends up being only slightly better than your average Fast & Furious movie, a franchise I have grown to despise over the years.

Paul has done some decent big screen acting in the past. His role as an alcoholic in Smashed is his best in movies. His future slate, including another film with Poots called A Long Way Down, a role in Ridley Scott’s Exodus, and possible involvement in the Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul, looks promising.

That’s a good thing, because his attempt to become the new Vin Diesel or Nicolas Cage falls flat. Need for Speed might look cool during some of the race scenes, but it stalls out when anybody opens their mouths and tries to emote.