Word: hoppers
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...plot is well-known by now. Staunch LAPD member Jack Travens (keanu Reeves) play a game of wits with crazy man Howard Payne (Dennis Hopper). Their showdown of sorts centers around a bus that Payne his wired with a bomb set to go off if the speed drops below...
...even hold his own with Dennis Hopper, his usual maniacally brilliant self. Hopper plays Howard Payne, an articulate, intelligent psychopath--such a big departure from all of his other roles. But Hopper is particularly unlikable and unsympathetic here...
Speed has terrified (and nicely particularized) passengers, a resourceful hero (Keanu Reeves), a gutsy heroine (the always appealing Sandra Bullock) and & a terrific villain (Dennis Hopper, doing what he does best -- rationalism gone gaga). The can't-slow-down bus ride is bookended with a pair of thrill sequences, either one of which would provide enough of a plot for most movies. Speed begins with a crowded elevator that is sometimes in free fall and is rigged to explode at a certain floor, and it ends with a driverless subway running out of control, the heroine helpless inside...
...this case she is Suzanne (Lara Flynn Boyle), Michael's intended victim. After he spares her, she expresses her gratitude by luring him still nearer to destruction. Film noir also typically calls for a dash of psychopathy, and in Red Rock West that is provided by Dennis Hopper, who plays the professional killer and causes lightning flashes of madness to streak across the screen. Red Rock West has the customary film noir hint of civic corruption (barkeep Wayne is also the town sheriff) and reveals the equally conventional link between crimes present and a large crime past...
Even more perverse, from the Hollywood packager's point of view, the film's stars do not have big-time chic and guaranteed box-office appeal, and, Hopper aside, they work in an intense but minimalist vein. Meanwhile, the director, John Dahl (who wrote the screenplay with his brother Rick) is young and virtually unknown...