‘Speed’: The film that changed action movies 30 years ago

Before the era of endless franchises, an original film could break through at the box office simply on the virtues of its plot. What in the world of Hollywood scriptwriting is called a high concept: a one-sentence pitch that can be sold to both executives and viewers. In the case of Speed — which was released in the United States on June 10, 1994 — the idea could be summed up as “a bus that explodes if it goes below 50 miles per hour” (or as Homer Simpson put it “the bus that couldn’t slow down”).

And this idea was enough for Speed — in the summer of The Lion King and Forrest Gump — to become one of the biggest action blockbusters of the 1990s. It was led by Keanu Reeves, an actor who was not at all associated with the genre at that time, but who would go on to become one of its most influential figures, accompanied by a budding star, Sandra Bullock, and the world authority on over-the-top villains, Dennis Hopper.

Structured in three long action sequences — while most of the action takes place on the bus, the first 20 minutes are set in an elevator with a bomb and there is another 15-minute climax in an explosive train, because the studio, Fox, feared that the bus scenes wouldn’t be enough —, Speed was a spectacle in perpetual motion. There is the cat and mouse game between the policeman and the extortionist, who plants bombs in revenge for being forced into retirement after injuring himself, while, fittingly, defusing a bomb. But on top of that, there is one crazy unforeseen event after another: a stray bullet hitting the driver and forcing an inexperienced passenger to take the wheel, a road under construction that the bus must jump over by accelerating, and the baby stroller that is run over, but fortunately only contains soda cans.

One of the biggest assets of Speed — the directorial debut of the Dutchman Jan de Bont — was the peculiar charisma of Keanu Reeves. With Point Break (1991) his only action movie, Reeves was an alternative face of Generation X, who had stood out in dramas such as My Private Idaho (1991) or in niche youth comedies such as Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989). He also played bass in a grunge band, Dogstar, which is still active. His foray into big budget movies with Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) did not go well for Reeves: his performance as Jonathan Harker was the most criticized in the Francis Ford Coppola film.

Reeves was chosen by De Bont for his “vulnerable” appearance, and was unsure of his abilities to be a blockbuster hero. He also had to deal with a personal tragedy: the death of his close friend River Phoenix in October 1993, in the middle of the shoot. “It got to him emotionally. He became very quiet,” De Bont said in a 1994 article in Entertainment Weekly titled Keanu Reeves, the Next Action Star?.

In the article, journalist Melina Gerosa says, based on the actor’s timid responses in the interview: “If Reeves does become an action star, he’ll probably go down as the shiest one in history.” Sandra Bullock, in the same report, acknowledged she was curious about that mysterious, tortured figure. “I think there’s a lot of pain,” she said. “I would see him go off by himself, and there’s a hint of sadness in his eyes that makes you want to go, ‘What is it?’… But he keeps it to himself, and that makes you want to know even more about him.”

“He broke the mold of what an action star could be,” journalist and critic Chris Barsanti tells EL PAÍS. “Before Speed, they tended to be stoic, muscular and very confident, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone or Clint Eastwood. [Reeves] is not the big guy who’s been training in the gym and has a huge gun to get his hands on. There is a transparency in his actions, the people on the bus can see him solving the problem and that gives them more confidence than if he had pretended to have it solved from the start. His appeal is, in part, because he is the underdog.”

Chris Barsanti is the author of What Would Keanu Do?: Personal Philosophy and Awe-Inspiring Advice from the Patron Saint of Whoa, which discusses the actor’s philosophy and his transformation into a movie icon, thanks to his considerable string of emblematic films and his public image. Reeves is seen as one of Hollywood’s most human stars, unafraid to appear sad in public, or to show his infectious passion for his martial arts, animation, video game and literature projects.

And contrary to predictions, Reeves is the person who ended up dictating the prevailing trends in action cinema with Matrix (1999) and John Wick (2014), a feat he achieved thanks to his dedication to action choreography and learning martial arts with stuntman Chad Stahelski. In 2013, he directed his own martial arts movie, Man of Tai Chi.

“Each of these films marked a turning point in action cinema. They were copied, but never equaled,” explains Barsanti. “It’s similar to what Bruce Willis, previously known for the television comedy Moonlighting [1985], did with Die Hard [1988], in which he was also a normal and ordinary guy. Rather than punching his way through, Reeves is the embodiment of cinematic Zen. He stays still, studies the landscape, and when he acts, he moves intelligently and quickly. There is an economy to his movements, no wasted effort, which in certain scenes, like the shootout on the Paris stairs in John Wick 4 [2023], is like watching ballet.”

When asked if he has philosophical lessons to draw from Speed, Barsanti replies: “It may not be much more than a superbly executed thriller against the clock, but it’s far from mindless. Although ‘shoot the hostage’ is a terrible idea in real life, in Speed it serves as an interesting stimulus that encourages thinking outside the box and searching for answers in surprising places.”

A star pupil

Although Speed was his first film as a director, Jan de Bont didn’t appear out of nowhere. He had an impressive resume as director of photography of some of the most important films of the late 20th century, especially his work with directors Paul Verhoeven and John McTiernan. He was the cinematographer of Turkish Delight (1973), Flesh and Blood (1985), Die Hard, The Hunt for Red October (1990) and Basic Instinct (1992). McTiernan — who felt that Speed was Die Hard on a bus — was the person who recommended De Bont as director after turning down the movie.

“We really wanted to get some new life in action movies because at that time they had become so stale and so flat and so repetitive. We really wanted to make a change,” Jan de Bont told Collider in 2020, regarding the style he forged with McTiernan after Die Hard. “By making it much freer, with a looser camera and only use three locations and make scenes in which the camera flowed from one to the other and actors who are actually doing some of their own stunts, many of their own stunts ... You can see it.”

He added: “It’s basically trying to be the point of view of the audience [...] So it’s not that static, non-moving, tied-to-the-ground camera position. The camera takes the position of somebody that wants to know more, that wants to see more. It’s investigative.”

But Jan de Bont’s career as a director was not as brilliant as his career as a cinematographer. De Bont, who has been retired for more than 20 years, only directed five films, including the sequel, Speed 2 (1997), which was panned by the critics. Reeves did not star in the sequel and the now-famous Sandra Bullock became the lead. Despite the actress’s commendable efforts, she was not helped by the script.

Instead of being the heroine in Speed 2, she once acted as the comic relief alongside a police officer called Jason Patric, who is her new romantic interest. The strange tone (Bullock is meant to be the lead, but doesn’t play a significant role in the story) and a plot twist that is too far-fetched (this time with a villain, played by Willem Dafoe, who resents his company after his blood is contaminated with copper) were jumped on by the critics, who also attacked the movie’s far from ordinary action sequences and set designs.

Bullock and Patric did not have the same chemistry as Bullock and Reeves. In an interview with Ellen DeGeneres in 2018, the actress confessed that she had feelings for her co-star. “I think about how sweet Keanu Reeves was, and how handsome he was. It was hard for me to be serious,” she said, reflecting on the movie. “There’s something about me that I guess he didn’t like.” A year later, on the same show, DeGeneres asked Reeves if he knew that Bullock had a crush on him. He said no, adding: “She obviously didn’t know I had a crush on her either.”

When Esquire later asked Bullock about this, the star of Gravity (2013) said the misunderstanding was likely due to Reeves’ reserved nature: “It drives you crazy. When I first met him, I would spend as much time as I could filling a silence, just to feel comfortable. And the more I jibber-jabbered on, the quieter he would get. And I thought, I don’t understand what’s happening! He’s looking at me with eyes of confusion. He’s quiet. Did I say something to offend him? And then a day or two later, he would arrive with a note or a little package, saying, ‘I thought about what you said.’ And he would have his response.”

In Speed, Reeves’ character Jack tells Bullock: “I’ve heard relationships based on intense experiences never work.” It was one of the many uncredited lines from Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997), to whom Speed screenwriter Graham Yost attributed “98.9%” of the dialogue. In his rewrite of the script, Whedon took on board Reeves’ idea of making Jack more like a SWAT member, with the character becoming more polite and less boastful, and of cutting the film’s big twist: Jack’s partner, played by Jeff Daniels, was going to be in cahoots with the villain. Yost, however, recycled the idea in his next film, Broken Arrow (1996).

Thirty years after Speed, Reeves and Bullock — in addition to belatedly declaring their crushes on another — have both said they would be interested in starring in another sequel, which is not yet on the horizon. In the meantime, Speed remains relevant and has had a deep impact on popular culture: all types of productions reference the movie, from The Simpsons to the Spanish film All the Names of God (2023).

And Speed is still very much relevant, with the July 17 release of Twisters, an update of his 1996 disaster film Twister, a classic of the 1990s. While De Bont’s career as a director may have been short-lived, his legacy endures.

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