Keanu Reeves has had an interesting career in acting.  Probably the first major role anyone remembers him in is as Ted “Theodore” Logan in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989).  This fits with the majority of his early work, which is more comedic in nature.  Then we get a period of big, dumb action flicks that are laughable for other reasons.  By the late 1990s and into the early 2000s, he does The Matrix trilogy (we will leave off The Matrix Resurrections (2021) as an outlier), which makes him into a martial arts star.  He runs with this label in a number of forgettable films until he swings back to the silly shoot-‘em-ups of the John Wick movies.  He has done some independent work in between, my favorite of these being Destination Wedding (2018).  It all points to some range in the types of characters he can play, which complicates what is perhaps a stereotype about his usual work.  Today’s example is from that second epoch on his resume, Speed (1994), which helped fuel this perception.

Deep in the bowels of a Los Angeles skyscraper, there is no reason for Howard Payne (Dennis Hopper) to Speed.  He killed a nosy security guard while rigging an elevator to explode, and no one knows of his plot.  A group of executives gets on, a small bomb goes off severing the cable that allows it to function properly, and it plummets several feet before the emergency break stops them.  This brings emergency services, namely the Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) bomb disposal unit.  Had enough acronyms yet?  The two that get assigned to look after the endangered elevator passengers are Officers Harry Temple (Jeff Daniels) and Jack Traven (Keanu Reeves).  The device they encounter is sophisticated, one that they cannot diffuse in the time remaining to them before Howard’s deadline to get his ransom money.  Jack finds a way, though, to hook the car to a crane at the top of the building.  This does not hold them forever, but it allows them to get the hostages to safety.  Upon this successful maneuver, Jack realizes that Howard is still in the building, and they ultimately find the bomber.  Unfortunately, Harry manages to get captured by Howard, and is only saved when Harry suggests to Jack that his partner perform the crazy action he had theorized for a similar situation: shoot the hostage.  Surprised, Howard runs off, a detonation covering his escape the police presume leads to his demise.  For their heroism, Harry and Jack are awarded medals, though Harry is salty about it since he had to take a bullet in the leg.  The day after the ceremony, Harry is behind a desk in the precinct and Jack is getting coffee when a city bus explodes near Jack.  As the vehicle is still burning, a payphone close by begins ringing.  Jack picks it up and to his horror, it is Howard on the other end.  The terrorist informs Jack that there is another public transportation vehicle on the road, Bus 2525.  Once it hits 50 miles per hour, the bomb underneath it will arm.  Following this, if it slows below that number, it will detonate, killing everyone aboard.  If anyone attempts to get off the bus, he will blow it up.  Once again, Howard is after the millions of dollars he feels he is owed, the result of not getting enough from the government upon being injured in the line of duty when he served as a cop.  Jack races to find the bus, though the driver, Sam (Hawthorne James), initially takes the officer for a lunatic and will not let him board.  This leads to Sam pushing the bus past the arming velocity.  It takes Jack chasing the bus down in a commandeered car and having a hand-written sign about the situation fly onto the windshield that gets this city employee to finally realize the danger and let Jack board.  He quickly explains that he is a cop and that he is there to help, but it riles Ray (Daniel Villarreal), who pulls a gun and wounds Sam.  As the bus slows and swerves, Annie (Sandra Bullock), who is riding public transportation because of a suspended license, is pressed into service.  Eventually, things settle into a pattern as the rest of the LAPD try to clear lanes for the bus while they work on solving the bomb and the identity of its maker.  Upon navigating some harrowing moments, like jumping a fifty-foot-wide gap in the freeway, Jack has Annie turn them onto the runway at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).  The maneuver buys them some time while Harry learns Howard’s real identity.  By uncovering Howard’s residence, they hope to take the bomber out and thus end the crisis.  Yet, he anticipates this move, and destroys the house with Harry and other SWAT members in it.  Though devastated, hearing the news gives Jack insight into what is going on in the bus.  He realizes that Howard has remote cameras inside the vehicle.  Jack then gets a local news van to create a loop of the feed, which gives them the opportunity to evacuate the bus.  Now the police are ahead of the terrorist, though any advantage they have is wiped away when Howard notices the trap they have set around the place they have arranged to hand over the ransom money.  Still, Howard is able to make off with the cash, and takes Annie with him.  Jack is the first to realize something is wrong, and chases Howard into the subway.  While Jack is able to put an end to Howard, literally, their fight leads to damage to the subway train on which they are riding.  Because Annie is handcuffed to a handrail, Jack comes up with the plan of increasing their velocity as a means of surviving their predicament.  They do, of course, as only the silliness of Hollywood can deliver.

Though I said this in a different context in the introduction, Jack Traven is a man of action in Speed.  Only such a person with little forethought can conceive of shooting a hostage in order to solve a crisis, or jumping a bus over a fifty-foot-wide gap.  As the title would suggest, and I get that the character is a victim to how he is written, the idea is that quick thinking and decisive decisions are what is needed in intense situations.  Along these lines, there is an interesting phrase, first uttered by Annie, but repeated in a comic relief moment at the end by Jack, that relationships that form under intense situations typically do not last.  As much as I might hate to admit it given the absurdities contained therein, there is a great deal of wisdom to this statement to this Catholic.  There is an old saying among soldiers that there is no such thing as an atheist in the foxhole.  The stress of combat leads to soldiers begging that God keep them alive, but when He does, they often return to their previous sinful ways.  There are some exceptions in Catholicism, like St. Ignatius of Loyola, who turned whole heartedly to God after being wounded in battle.  Regardless, you do not need to go to the battlefield to see the concept at work.  How many times have you asked God for something to happen, received it, and then forgot about Him entirely?  Further, when Jack says these words, Annie responds by saying that they will just have to base their relationship on sex.  With a sigh, I could not help but think: is not coitus an “intense situation?”  Do relationships based solely on physical intimacy last?  Is it any wonder that the Church teaches that bedroom relations are best saved for after marriage?  It all points to a broader discussion about timing.  I get that a cop often has to make snap decisions about life or death, but big choices, the Church tells us, are ones that take a long time to ponder.  Of course, somebody can be convicted of a particular course of action with little or no discernment.  Normally, some period of consideration should be given for anything we do, big or small, taking God’s will into account.

Chances are that you have already seen Speed, so any recommendation I might give is probably futile.  At the same time, it is a generation defining movie, and perhaps worthy of some thought in that sense.  Thus, if anything, you might watch it simply for the action and stunts.  If you do, do not expect much in the way of a plot.  There is some swearing and violence, but relatively tame besides.  Make of this what you will.