Entertainment
Remember When Aaron Paul and Rami Malek Tried to One-Up the Fast and Furious Franchise With Their Own Racing Movie?
In 2014, acclaimed, award-winning actors Aaron Paul and Rami Malek teamed up in what turned out to be a rather underwhelming live-action video game adaptation, Need for Speed. Based on the racing-themed video game franchise of the same name, published by Electronic Arts, director Scott Waugh and DreamWorks Pictures were not only adapting the popular video game series but attempting to channel the overwhelming success of the Fast & Furious franchise. The Fast & Furious series had recently completely reinvented itself under the direction of Justin Lin and had become a powerhouse at the box office. DreamWorks obviously wanted to one-up the Fast & Furious series here, but the attempt achieved mixed results. It’s time to take a look back at Need for Speed.
‘Need for Speed’ Favored a More Realistic Style
Need for Speed tries to one-up Fast & Furious by attempting to lean on more practical vehicular stunts, races, and special effects. As the Fast & Furious series became more epic and bigger in scope, the action sequences became far more over-the-top, ambitious, and unrealistic. The later films frequently required more outlandish CGI-laden stunts and visual effects as the movies moved further away from the franchise’s street racing roots.
Director Scott Waugh, coming from a stunt performer and stunt driver background, wanted to make a movie that looked real with Need for Speed. To his credit, the movie does meet that criteria, for the most part, with its racing sequences and action setpieces, and Waugh strives for a realistic sense of immersion throughout the experience. As the director told Den of Geek in a March 2014 interview, “Here’s the way I approach directing. I did stunts for 25 years, and I want to let my audiences feel what it’s like from my perspective, in what I was lucky enough to have done.” He continued, “So I’m always choosing camera angles that put audiences in the middle, rather than sit back – which is something you normally have in movies, in car movies especially.”
Rather than “sit back and watch the wrecks,” Waugh wants the audience to be put inside them, imbuing his movie with a more grounded and realistic style. He added, “I want you to be inside it, because that’s where my life has really been. And I feel it’s just an immersive angle.” Waugh certainly pulls that off throughout Need for Speed, with some of the more visceral camera shots that put the audience right in the driver’s seat with Tobey Marshall (Aaron Paul).
Rami Malek Shows Off His Comedic Chops, Aaron Paul Displays Leading Man Qualities
Oscar and Emmy-winning actor Rami Malek is best known for his more dramatic roles in films such as Bohemian Rhapsody, Oppenheimer, his Bond villain in No Time To Die, and shows like Mr. Robot. However, Need for Speed showcases Malek in a more comedic supporting role opposite Paul, portraying the role of Finn, a mechanic and member of Tobey’s crew. Malek’s highlight scene features Finn quitting his job by stripping naked as a way to reinforce that there’s no going back to his miserable corporate job and to join Tobey in his quest to get revenge on the evil racer, Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper), the man responsible for the death of Tobey and Finn’s friend, Pete Coleman (Harrison Gilbertson).
Need for Speed is by no means among Malek’s best works, but it’s fun to go back and watch Malek here in one of his earlier roles before he hit it big and started raking in awards and prestige. He shows off a lighter, more charismatic side in Need for Speed, and he exhibits other facets to his character during his famous office scene. Malek definitely stands out as one of the more notable performers in the cast whose career skyrocketed years later, so it’s interesting to see how much he has grown and evolved from the role of Finn.
Sadly, Paul was not able to transition into bigger and better movie roles after starring in Need for Speed. Nevertheless, he displays strong leading man qualities as the blue-collar mechanic and amateur racer, Tobey Marshall. Although Need for Speed does not feature the strongest script, his charisma and presence do shine during the story. Paul displays a strong underdog persona as Tobey, seeking to keep his late father’s garage afloat. Tobey suffers a heartbreaking loss early in the film when Dino intentionally causes Pete’s death, disappearing from the scene of the accident, leaving Tobey to take the fall for the crime. After serving years in prison, Tobey mounts his comeback story to beat Dino. Need for Speed basically bakes a classic 1980s teen underdog movie plot into a video game-based racing adaptation.
‘Need for Speed’ Failed to Ignite a Franchise
Upon its release, Need for Speed failed to rev the engines of critics and audiences, earning a 23% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie only managed to gross $43.5 million domestically against a reported $66 million budget, rendering it a financial disappointment. However, the video game adaptation performed significantly better at the international box office, where it grossed $159.7 million, for a worldwide total of about $203 million. Despite its focus on practical action and stunts, Need for Speed failed to achieve the sense of fun and spectacle of Fast & Furious.
At times, Need for Speed comes off as overly self-serious and dour, and George Gatins’ script occasionally seems awkward and clunky. For example, Tobey wants revenge on Dino for abandoning Tobey and Pete after a car wreck, noting that Dino broke a cardinal sin by leaving a driver behind in a wreck. And yet, later on, Tobey does that exact thing multiple times, especially during the climactic final act. Additionally, since the movie is based on a video game series, it incorporates those elements through the De Leon race and its eccentric overseer, Monarch (Michael Keaton), who also hosts a weirdly popular underground podcast about illegal street racing. The narrative reinforcing such elaborate grandeur, pomp, and prestige of an unprofessional, illegal street race circuit comes off as rather hammy, convoluted, and contrived, putting off critics, moviegoers, and fans of the games.
Nevertheless, Need for Speed serves as an interesting time capsule of the 2010s, showcasing a post-Breaking Bad Aaron Paul starring in a big-budget racing movie. The racing drama shoots for the stars, clearly trying to capitalize on the popularity of Fast & Furious, but it could not quite tap into the campy, fun, car racing-meets-blockbuster action movie entertainment that Fast & Furious pulled off so well at the time. Fans of racing underdog stories, featuring practical action setpieces and stunts over CGI effects, might want to give this a look.
Need for Speed is now available to stream on Hulu in the U.S.
- Release Date
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March 14, 2014
- Runtime
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131 minutes
- Writers
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George Gatins, John Gatins
- Producers
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John Gatins, Mark Sourian, Patrick O’Brien
