Wafer-thin plot

The action shots in George Tillman’s Faster are watered down and
the plot hangs rather loosely without any cumulative build-up

WHEN Dwayne Johnson is around, one usually expects fireworks on the screen. And this time, he is not strutting his comic avatar as in Tooth Fairy and Game Plan. His hard rock physique and stony face appeal has managed to entertain viewers of both high drama and wrestle mania bouts as in Scorpion King.

So, Faster looks like another bang-bang action drama where Johnson is the silent, raging, murderous, hit man hell bent on revenge. But the action shots are watered down and the plot hangs rather loosely and not helped one bit by a wafer-thin plot. The script, too, is decidedly weak.

Then, there are too many characters that flit in and out of the frame with a variety of weapons and motifs, which dilute the content. It is more like a passing parade and this not only adds to avoidable data but works against any cumulative build-up.

To add to the mess, Billy Bob Thornton’s wishy-washy cop act, with all its daredevilry and his lukewarm chemistry with Carla Gugino, do not really help the narrative. Hence the action is anything but what the title suggests. Director George Tillman is never quite in control of the story and the second half only makes it worse. If it is meant to show unity in diversity, it fails by a long mark. If one has to look for plus points, well there are some unusual camera angles and some clever action cuts but these scarcely compensate for the overall tedium. In one word, avoidable.

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