Need for Speed

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'm realizing the 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. Paul's 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.