(Why there was more than one attack on the Mustang in 3,000 miles is something else entirely.) Together - along with the firecracker of a British woman, Julia ( Imogen Poots), who secures for Tobey that same Mustang dream machine he restored - they Cannonball Run it across the country, dodging the occasional cop and street punk after the bounty Dino put on Tobey’s head. All Tobey needs to do is get from New York to the starting line in San Francisco in a little over a day.įor that he needs his old Marshall Motors crew: Finn ( Rami Malek), the expert tuner Joe ( Ramon Rodriguez), who drives the support truck and Benny ( Scott Mescudi, better known as hip hop artist Kid Cudi), who flies a Cessna that never runs out of gas and can spot the police from the sky. Tobey wants to watch Dino explode in an expensive ball of fire. Dino’s business is failing, so he’s entering to keep the ship afloat.
Only a select few drivers are invited to race their million-dollar sports cars and the winner gets the pink slips to the losers’ rides. Good thing the plot comes to his rescue: There is an underground race called the DeLeon, organized by a mysterious internet racing evangelist called Monarch ( Michael Keaton). Two years of prison later, Tobey is back and thirsty for revenge. Said screwing comes during a post-sale race, during which Dino runs Tobey’s best friend, Little Pete ( Harrison Gilbertson), off the road to his death - and Dino frames Tobey for the crime.
Of course, because Dino spends the movie twirling his imaginary mustache, you know he’s going to screw Tobey over. Dino wants Tobey and his crew of grease monkeys to finish the car - worth at least a cool million at auction - and will cut the Marshall Motors crew in for a quarter of the sale price. Dino is in the possession of an unfinished Ford Mustang that was being designed by legendary car customizer Carroll Shelby.
Luckily, a fella named Dino ( Dominic Cooper) - a local kid who left town to become a professional race car driver and entrepreneur (and stole Tobey’s girl on the way out) - shows up with an offer. He inherited it from his dear old dad, who was apparently not fond of paying bills - and Tobey finds himself deep in debt. He runs the top-flight Marshall Motors garage, which specializes in squeezing every last ounce of speed from the hot rods that apparently litter the sleepy upstate town of Mt. That story, such as it is, follows Marshall, mechanic-savant by day, underground racer-savant by night. STORY: Aloe Blacc, Kid Cudi, Skylar Grey Featured on ‘Need for Speed’ Soundtrack Some interest in what Breaking Bad’s Jesse Pinkman does next, along with young men drawn to horsepower, could give this a decent enough opening weekend, but it’s not the franchise starter I’m sure everyone involved hoped it would be. When Aaron Paul’s Tobey Marshall is behind the wheel - and a crew of stuntmen are wreaking some refreshingly non-CG automotive havoc - director Scott Waugh’s movie is a blast.
You will get some of that in Need for Speed, DreamWorks and Disney’s adaptation of the Electronics Arts series of games. You want to feel the wind in your hair and leave the theater with your ears ringing from the deafening roar of Detroit muscle. You want a hero who can gamely stare death in the eye as he pilots 3,000 pounds of screaming metal faster than anyone else. You want a simple story upon which you can hang a bit of character development. You want a flick that swiftly moves you from car chase to car chase - each more impressive in its accelerated virtuosity than the last. What you want from a movie called Need for Speed is right there in the title.