Kill Speed zooms by, an ultra high-energy chase-movie featuring cool young guys whose only thoughts are top speed, snazzy women and tricked-out airplanes.
The new DVD sizzles with likely the best airplane chase sequences ever as experimental aircraft dodge chase jets, mountains and death; think Bullit in the sky, not the streets of San Francisco.
Andrew Keegan as Strayger and Brandon Quinn as the Rainman are a new breed of hot pilots, buddies in the sky with diamonds, though here they carry jeweled meth from Mexican cartels. Back on terra firma sporting pockets full of cash, they play in the hottest clubs or on ocean beaches where the girls are all 10s.
Never a moment wasted with this wild bunch (makes one wonder what Sam Peckinpah would have done differently), or as Strayger puts it, "If it floats, flies, or French kisses, stay on top of it, right?"
Burning right from the opening sequence, desert-based meth cooker Tom Arnold, along with Shawnee Smith as Honey, steal cameo performances and almost the movie. She brings new meaning to the "Breakfast of Champions." In their version of trailer-trash living high — there's a dilapidated boat parked out front with other stacked metal junk — trouble knocks and ruins their day. What ensues is one of the funniest scenes this year.
If you think the car chase sequences in The French Connection are exciting, wait until you see this: a jet chasing these "flyguyz" through downtown Los Angeles. When the ultimate video-gamer turned air traffic controller, Einstein (playfully brought to life by Graham Norris) commands, "Take the next exit and fly left around the Staples Center," hang on. You are about to visit in the most unique way ever the 2nd Street tunnel.
Remember the sequence as this tunnel is one of the most famous yet uncredited passageways in the country. Right off Figueroa Street ("The Fig"), this tunnel found its way in movies like Con Air, Demolition Man and Independence Day.
Natalia Cigliuti brings drug agent Rosanna to the screen as a romantic yet razor-sharp cop; her lure is far more addictive than money or drugs. Wheeling a black Mustang that is jet-fast, earning her multiple tickets, the plot thickens every time she is on screen. Thrill movies like Kill Speed endure, though, when the script surprises with tidbits of humor to release the tension that builds in all of these action sequences and personal traumas.
1988's Die Hard continues to be fun to rack because Bruce Willis mutters lines such as this when crawling through an air vent under machine gun fire, recalling his wife's invitation to visit over the holidays: "Come out to the coast, we'll get together, have a few laughs."
In Kill Speed, Agent Kyle Jackson (Reno Wilson) is a tough-as-nails anti-drug hero brutally tortured by Escondido (Christian Monzon) the cartel chieftain. In a scene where Escondido escorts Strayger, now a turncoat to escape prosecution, to witness Jackson chained and racked with pain in a cell, the agent chimes out: "Why don't you give me some huevos rancheros?"
From Backstreet Boys fame comes Nick Carter playing anything but teen-idol as Foreman with a cocked hat and goofy charm that is entertaining to watch. As he says to two buxom blond club-girls after wowing them with his flying exploits, "Know what I'm sayin'?"
The stars also are the airplanes; experimentals, military jets and race planes. Just like dragsters, they race together, side-by-side; zooming to the next bend in the canyon, dodging bullets tracing the sky, or in a startling red, white and blue formation. This is real action with the actors in the planes delivering dialogue.
The movie is cut to maximize speed and excitement—there are no long walks from one place to another, for example—so there is never a dull moment; don't turn away or you will miss something. Remember that when hanging on with the speed thrills in "Kill Speed."
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