Speed (1994 film)
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| Directed by | Jan de Bont |
| Written by | Graham Yost Joss Whedon (uncredited) |
| Produced by | Mark Gordon |
| Starring | Keanu Reeves Sandra Bullock Dennis Hopper |
| Cinematography | Andrzej Bartkowiak |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release date | June 10 1994 (USA) |
Running time | 116 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $28,000,000 US (est.) |
Speed is a 1994 film directed by Jan de Bont, starring Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock (her breakout role), Jeff Daniels and Dennis Hopper. Written by Graham Yost, the story is about a Los Angeles police officer (Reeves) who has to stop an insane bomber/extortionist (Hopper) who has rigged a bomb on a public transit bus (a Santa Monica Intercity Bus Lines bus, which looks similar to City of Santa Monica Big Blue Bus). The film is often cited as an excellent example of a high concept film: "a bomb on a bus."
Plot summary
Template:Spoiler Jack Traven (Reeves) is a hot-shot bomb squad officer who is willing to do unconventional things to resolve hostage situations, like shooting the hostage (in this case, his partner, Harry (Daniels)). A disgruntled individual, Howard Payne (Hopper), likes to challenge Traven and his unconventional techniques. After Traven foils an attempt by Payne to extort money by holding an elevator hostage (through remote control), Payne ups the ante by declaring that a bus in the city has been rigged with explosives triggered by the bus speed. When the bus exceeds 50 mph (80 km/h) the explosive is armed, with the charge being triggered to explode if its speed drops below 50 mph thereafter. Additionally, no one is allowed on or off the bus.
Traven races to intercept the bus, eventually resorting commandeering a sports car to do so. Unfortunately, he is too late to stop the bus from exceeding the 50 miles per hour; the bomb is now armed and cannot be stopped. Now required to keep the bus moving at the minimum speed at all costs, Traven boards the bus while it's in motion by jumping from the car to the bus. However, a young hoodlum, mistakenly believing that the police officer was doing all this to arrest him, produces a handgun and demands the bus be stopped. While Traven tries to explain the situation, another rider tackles the hoodlum and causes the handgun to accidentally go off and hit the bus driver.
A young woman, Annie (Bullock), is forced to take over the controls and struggle to keep the bus moving at an acceptable speed. Even though she lost her license for speeding, she must, ironically, speed through the congested city to keep the bus moving. Meanwhile, the police are alerted to the crisis and, with the police chief supervising the situation from the air, provide escort, clear traffic, and plan the best route for the bus, while Harry leads the search for the bomber back at headquarters. After braving various deadly perils, the bus is lead to the unfinished Interstate 105 freeway where the bus can travel with few obstacles and the police commandeer a large flat bed truck to enable to unload the passengers. Traven warns his superior that the attempt would be detected by the bombers with the pursuing television news helicopters above and the passengers would be immediately killed. However, the young cop convinces Payne to allow the injured bus driver off the bus. However, after the bus driver is safely off, a woman pushes her way through and attempts to get off. Payne, who is watching the situation on live TV, pushes a button, detonating a minor charge below the floor of the bus near the door, killing the woman who then passes under the rear wheels of the bus. The situation takes a terrifying aspect when the police learn of a wide gap at an approaching overpass. With no other option, Traven tells Annie to proceed at maximum speed towards the gap in hopes of making the bus jump it. Against all probability, the bus successfully makes the jump while still maintaining the necessary speed.
Following Jack's instructions, Annie drives the rigged bus into Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) whose airspace the media helicopters are prohibited from entering. After many mishaps and near misses such as Traven's failed attempt to defuse the bomb by riding a small cart, towed by a preceding vehicle, that slips between the wheels of the bus, Harry finds the bomber's identity. It turns out that the bomber was a former Atlanta PD bomb squad officer, invalided out of duty, and he's living in LA. Unfortunately, the attempt to arrest him out is foiled; Payne has moved out, and the house that the police raid blows up with a prepared booby trap and kills the SWAT team, including Harry. Although about to give up escaping in the face of that terrible setback, Traven suddenly figures out the bomber is monitoring the activity in the bus with a hidden camera inside and uses that knowledge to fool him while the occupants are safely evacuated. Once that is done, Traven and Annie safely escape, and then watch as the bus crashes into a cargo plane and explodes.
The authorities then arrange a sting operation to catch the suspect, only to be challenged again by Payne in a last ditch attempt at getting his money. Payne pretends to be a police officer and lures Annie as a hostage onto a Metro Red Line subway train. Realizing Payne's trickery, Officer Traven pursues the criminal and finds the train. In a dramatic sequence, the two enemies fight on the top of the subway, which ends when Payne gets decapitated by a hanging light. However, the train can't stop now since Payne killed the operator and destroyed the controls. In the end, Annie and Jack crash at what is now the Hollywood/Highland Red Line station. (In 1993, the North Hollywood extension was under construction.) The train derails and is sent up an equipment access ramp outside Grauman's Chinese Theater. "I thought relationships based on extreme experiences never worked?" Jack asks Annie jokingly. "Well, we'll just have to base it on sex then" she replies. They then kiss, and the movie ends. Template:Endspoiler
Notes
One of the most famous scenes in the film shows the bus jumping across a gap in an elevated freeway-to-freeway ramp while still under construction. Both sides of the gap are of identical heights, making it unlikely that in real life the jump would work. Nevertheless, according to a "Making of..." feature that accompanied the DVD release, the stunt used a jumping ramp on solid pavement and really did traverse fifty feet in the air. (The biggest problem in any real scenario would be the sudden jolt on landing. The stunt bus had no passengers aboard and the driver was wearing a shock-absorbing harness.) The gap in the highway was added through CGI; note the flock of digital seagulls added by the FX tech to enhance the versimilitude of the scene.
The jump, as well as most freeway scenes in the movie, was filmed on California's Interstate 105, which had not been officially opened at the time of filming. Filming of the final scenes occurred at Palmdale Regional Airport, which doubled for Los Angeles International Airport. Those familiar with the local geography could easily identify the stand-in by mountains visible in the background.
There is a sequel called Speed 2: Cruise Control set on a cruise ship. Only Sandra Bullock returned to reprise her role. Willem Dafoe played the villain. The sequel was a critical and commercial flop.
The basic plot premise of extortion using a bomb designed to trigger automatically if a vehicle tries to stop was not original to this movie. Some earlier iterations are:
- "Trapped in the Sky," the first episode of the Thunderbirds animated television series (1965), features a supersonic airliner with a bomb in its landing gear. The occupants are threatened by radiation poisoning by the craft's power source overwhelming its ablative shielding which forces International Rescue to intervene to save them.
- In Rod Serling's 1966 TV-movie The Doomsday Flight, Edmond O'Brien's bomb is triggered to detonate if the airliner descends below 5,000 feet (1500 m). (The way around it was, of course, to land at Denver, whose airport is higher than 5,000 feet in altitude).
- In the 1975 Japanese movie Crisis Express 109 (Shinkansen Daibakuha) (shown in English as The Bullet Train), a Shinkansen train will be destroyed if its speed drops below 80 km/h.
The difference offered by Speed is really one of amplification: additional plot elements are layered onto the basic premise. With this film, the bus runs the immediate risk of collision in a congested traffic area that would, of course, have stopped and/or slowed it down enough to trigger the bomb. So, before the bomb can be addressed, the bus must be desperately maneuvered through the city, unable to slow down.
Parodies / Spoofs
The Speed movies have been parodied numerous times. For example, an episode of the UK situation comedy Father Ted, titled "Speed 3," shows Father Dougal McGuire trapped on a milk float with a bomb set to detonate if the float goes slower than 4 miles per hour (6.4 km/h). A further ironic use of the Speed theme came in the Academy Award-nominated short film, Speed for Thespians, in which a group of actors attempts to play out Chekhov's play "The Bear" on a New York City bus. Another parody can be seen in the Leslie Nielsen movie Spy Hard, featuring the late blind musician Ray Charles as the bus driver.
The plot element featuring a looped video recording was also spoofed in an episode of the US animated comedy program The Simpsons titled "The Springfield Files". In this episode, Homer Simpson remembers getting the idea from the film, which he wrongly thought was called "The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down." In another episode of The Simpsons, "Bye Bye Nerdie," Marge engages Otto in a bus/car chase, which causes the character Millhouse Van Houten to remark, "its like Speed 2 only with a bus instead of a boat."
It is also parodied in the animé Cyborg Kuro-chan where the bus was driven by Kuro-chan and was hijacked.
During the first Liberty City level in Grand Theft Auto, one of the hidden missions involves a bus that explodes if it does not stay above a specific speed.
Trivia
- First of three action thrillers produced by Mark Gordon and written by Graham Yost. The others were Broken Arrow and Hard Rain.
- Originally there were going to be two bombers. The first would blow himself up in the car park. The second would claim to be the first but would remain unseen. He would eventually be revealed as Jack's mentor, Harry Temple. Ed Harris and Randy Quaid were considered for the part, but when Harry became a good guy, they decided to go with Jeff Daniels. The idea of the hero's mentor turning bad was used in Broken Arrow. Randy Quaid would play a twist-in-the-tale villain in Hard Rain.
- As a former writer on Full House, Yost at one point pitched the story with the bus driven by Ellen DeGeneres as a comical driving instructor for the deaf.
- According to the DVD commentary, Walter Hill was considered as a director. Another director talked himself out of the job when he said the whole film should be shot against bluescreen. Jan de Bont pitched an idea that Lois (Beth Grant) had a twin on the bus. When Lois fell under the bus, her head would fly up and her twin would see it through the window. Mark Gordon thought this was too macabre, but de Bont's creative mind got him hired.
- Jeff Bridges and Johnny Depp were considered for the lead. When they turned it down, the filmmakers decided to make Annie the lead character. Halle Berry turned down the role after being shown an early draft of the script in which the bus went round and around Dodger Stadium. Winona Ryder also turned down the part. After Keanu Reeves was cast, producers set their sights lower. Sandra Bullock was cast on a recommendation to Jan de Bont by Die Hard and Lethal Weapon producer Joel Silver.
- At one point in the film, the bus crashes into an airliner and explodes, destroying both. The airliner is a freight airplane for the fictional Pacific Courier, the same company whose name appears on the truck used to transport the terrorists in Die Hard.
- According to a deleted scene, Annie trained as a graphic designer but works as a waitress (just until she can get enough money to “buy a gun and shoot herself”). According to Speed 2: Cruise Control Annie's surname is Porter.
- The fifty foot jump was not in the original script; it was Jan de Bont's idea.
- According to Graham Yost, screenwriter Joss Whedon wrote 80% of the script's dialogue, but didn't receive a credit. Whedon created several original characters and was credited on early posters; Joss boasts that he has the only such poster left. Overall, Whedon described it the finished film as one of the best he had worked on (previous to Serenity though). [1]
- Yost also felt in retrospect that the movie should have ended at the airport, and the subway sequence was too much.
- Richard Schiff plays the subway train driver.
- In Indonesia, Speed is played every year on local television stations.
- Speed was the last movie hosted by Graham Yost's father Elwy Yost on TVO's Saturday Night at the Movies. The showing was a courtesy of CTV, which owned the Canadian television rights to the movie at the time.