Kill Speed

I suffered through the whole feature. I had to watch it because it is my job. Please, for your own sake, skip the damn thing.

This was an enjoyable film for pilots as the action was quite real and some of the technical aspects of flying were accurate. For example, in the beginning there was a scene where the aircraft needed a hot start and the main character had to wait it out on the runway to get the plane restarted. On the other hand, flying through downtown LA was clearly dumb. At times the humor was cheesy, but overall it was fun to watch with the great flying sequences.

The main characters were likable and real. The outcome at the end was far-fetched considering the scale of the crimes, but I don't think that was the aim of the movie.

The plot and story are above average. The acting is above average. The action matches any thing in the Fast and the Furious films. The best part of this film is exposure to viewer of these new kind of plastic aircraft. The stunts, and action was real. There is none of this trick photography, and green screen stunts. The action is based on real life kind of flying done by experimental aircraft. These aircraft are not a fantasy waiting to be built. These kind of aircraft are flying now. Imagine being able to fly yourself across the country at 300 miles per hours. I was impressed with the film. I plan to buy the DVD when it comes out.

The problem with this movie is that it is corny. The script is very ordinary, so much so that you get a strong sense of deja vu with every word spoken. It's as if it was written by a paint by numbers manual for screenwriters. The leads do their best with the material. The lesser stars are wooden. The plot seems a little deja vu too, although the overall concept is far more convincing for a movie idea: three good-looking young men with their fast, modern small aircraft, embark on a high-octane adventure. And indeed, the flight sequences are riveting, sufficiently thrilling and populous to ensure that most will happily get through the movie, though without becoming engaged or excited. I can't think of too many other movies that involve precisely three pilots working together in a very high-tech game, although there are of course movies involving daring flights. With a better zest for movie-making this piece could easily have competed with the tv show Animal Kingdom or the movie Point Break. Two or three of the actors have the lustre but are given no opportunity to shine (including the bad guy). I also found the dial on morality here to be chronically downplayed, a blow to believability. There is an initial scenario that impressed me a little, being comic and gritty at the same time, but this wasn't a good indicator of how the movie was to track, indeed, it was only to introduce a couple of very minor players. Further attempts at humour were bland. The soundtrack was modern, and in this at least, somewhat creative. This would be a good idea for a movie to revisit if someone could spend the time to up the tension and unpredictability. Super fast planes alone was not enough.

I watched this with a couple of pilot buddies of mine. I'll start with what I liked because the list is quite small.

The flying. Apart from a few shots which were obviously CGI, the rest were actual aircraft actually flying, and the production team did a great job of making them look and sound fantastic. The fact the producers chose to go down that route instead of doing them entirely in CG deserves some credit.

But the list of gross factual errors, bad dialog, silly direction, and holes in what is already a paper thin plot pales in comparison with the bad pacing. For me, the pacing totally ruined any enjoyment I might have received from this film. One of the action scenes in the middle of the film was far better done than the one at the end so the second half of the film felt rather anti-climatic.