Faster

A white trash cousin to Jason Statham's geezer fu movies, this is no-nonsense, high- octane and as speedy as the title dares to suggest.

Revenge films bank on the audience's desire for the bad guys to get what they deserve, but the lack of any emotion in Faster invalidates that.

The film never outshines its influences, but as back-to-basics action filmmaking, it's often superb.

The have-it-both-ways approach quickly grows tiresome and tedious. But at least it's not The Tooth Fairy.

A hollow poser through and through.

It's an exercise in synthetic attitude, and proof that Jason Statham, with his not-dissimilar Charles Bronson remake The Mechanic, has dislodged Johnson as the more reliable tough action star de nos jours.

Faster needed either fewer brains or more, and Tillman’s directorial flourishes (saturated colors and offbeat angles) don’t make up for what’s lacking.

There's virtually no comedy relief, the violence is brutal and grim, and the characters aren't even given names.

It would be almost impossible to completely diss a film that seems to accomplish what it sets out to do, even if what it sets out to do isn't particularly artistic.

A badass homage to '70s revenge and action films.