Speed Speed

Get ready for rush hour

Los Angeles SWAT cop Jack Traven is up against bomb expert Howard Payne, who's after major ransom money. First it's a rigged elevator in a very tall building. Then it's a rigged bus--if it slows, it will blow, bad enough any day, but a nightmare in LA traffic. And that's still not the end.

Keanu Reeves Sandra Bullock Dennis Hopper Jeff Daniels Joe Morton Glenn Plummer Hawthorne James Carlos Carrasco Beth Grant Richard Lineback Alan Ruck Jordan Lund

20th Century Fox

thriller crime adventure action

116 mins   More details at IMDb / TMDb

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  • Andrew Bemis

    Review by Andrew Bemis ★★★★ 3

    Do not watch Speed unless you want to feel extremely old. It's not that the movie doesn't work anymore - it actually holds up very well as a great genre exercises. Even as one can feel the mechanisms of the script clicking into place one by one, it's done with such skill that it's not too bothersome, and director Jan de Bont does as great a job of directing an ensemble of talented character actors in a confined space as he does staging the action setpieces. Keanu Reeves is actually well cast as a young, reckless cop (though Point Break, which "queered" Keanu and the young hotshot archetype, is much more interesting), Sandra Bullock was never more likeable, and Dennis…

  • Mike N

    Review by Mike N ★★★★ 1

    When I have a particularly stressful day at work one of my favourite things to do when I get home is put on a great action movie. Is Speed one of the best action movies of the 90's? you bet your ass it is. Just look at that fucking poster, a bus flying through an explosion with Keanu Reeves looking right into your eyes like the badass he is - it perfectly summarises this movie: awesome.

    I was first introduced to Speed as a young boy and instantly fell in love with it's over the top absurdity, and that love remains to this day. It gets cheesier and more ridiculous on every re-watch, but I still adore it and always…

  • Imdabess

    Review by Imdabess ★★½

    Keanu Reeves has to make sure a bus moves at high velocity in order to prevent a bomb from going off, while Sandra Bullock drives the bus and makes cute faces.

    Is Speed some sort of commentary on the requirement that action movies be fast-paced, even to the loss of their plot? Perhaps Keanu represents the director of a typical action film, forced by the consumer's demands to put the reputations of the actors at stake. Still, though, you would probably gain more insight into that issue by reading a plot summary than by watching, and truly the movie is nothing special.

  • grooveman

    Review by grooveman ★★★★★ 3

    "Pop quiz, hotshot. 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?"

  • Jim Napier

    Review by Jim Napier ★★★½

    Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock became stars because of this film, but Dennis Hopper and Jeff Daniels put in some great performances. Jan de Bont did a great job of taking a film that takes place in cramped quarters and made it larger than life.

  • essankay

    Review by essankay ★★★★

    I was blown away by this film when I saw it in theaters. I always remembered the film fondly, but I never revisited it during the intervening years. Surprisingly, the film that made Keanu an action star still holds up. It is well made throughout with some tense action. Granted, the sequences bookending the bus stuff, though well executed, lack the same cohesion and urgency as the middle of the film. I also kind of wish they would have toned down the bus jump a little bit, to, say, 30 feet.

  • Daniel Kelly

    Review by Daniel Kelly ★★★★½

    One of the definitive 90s actioners and a terrific "Die Hard" knock-off to boot. Keanu Reeves is no Bruce Willis, but the action never lets up and Sandra Bullock and Dennis Hopper to stellar work as squeeze and nemesis respectively. The set-pieces are incredibly exciting and fiercely tense, with the momentum building toward a climax that feels genuinely earned. It's a pity most everything else director Jan De Bont has gone onto do has been garbage, because as debuts go this is polished and tremendous fun.

  • dannybowes

    Review by dannybowes ★★★★

    The Platonic ideal of a "DIE HARD on a something-or-other" movie, and was directed by the DP of that classic, Mr. Jan de Bont. Shit blows up marvelously, Jeff Daniels is the greatest cranky older partner there is, and Keanu, let us never forget, is taller than Dennis Hopper. May be the best thing Joss Whedon ever (ghost)wrote.

  • roiprada

    Review by roiprada ★★★★½

    Me cago en la leche Merche, pero qué bien envejece esa película. El único detalle que a día de hoy puede ser un poco anacrónico son las cejas de Sandra Bullock. Pero esos chistes noventeros. esa tralla ininterrumpida... simplemente ya no se hacen pelis así.

    :(