Tiffany Scott
Exec. Business Manager
John Travolta’s new action film, “Speed Kills,” disappoints audiences with a lack of a clear storyline and clumsy cinematography.
Directed by John Luessenhop and Jodi Scurfield, and produced by Blue Rider Pictures, “Speed Kills” was released in theaters across the country on November 16th, 2018. The movie added an interesting spin by basing it off of the true story of Don Aronow, a man involved with the mob in the 70s.
John Travolta plays Ben Aronoff, a fictional character based on Don Aronow. The film opens with his murder, then flashes back 25 years. Aronoff is a multimillionaire in the New Jersey Construction trade and decides to leave his mob background and start fresh in Miami. As Aronoff becomes famous in the speedboat world, he is simultaneously being forced to smuggle drugs and money for dangerous people. Eventually, his double life and his shady past catches up with him.
Unlike many stories about mobsters, “Speed Kills” forgets fundamental details of a rise to power and instead relies on action scenes of triumph without revealing how it was achieved. There is no background to the story and no context to help viewers understand what is going on.
The movie not only fails to provide context, but it also fails to provide a clear storyline. The film itself is made up of seemingly pointless scenes, and is absent of logic or even tension. The 25 year time-jump further confuses viewers, especially when the characters seemed as if they hadn’t aged a year. Time, like the plot, is another thing that is puzzling and incoherent.
While most likely exhilarating for the competitor, speed boating is not exactly a cinematic sport, which is a sequence used over and over throughout the film. Adding to the lack of cinematic effect, images were freeze-framed so that Travolta’s voice-over narration could inform audiences of who or what they were looking at. These aspects contributed to the unevenness of the cinematography.
Travolta fans would have been disappointed by the way the movie turned out. It wasn’t his lack of talent, it was the way his character was written into the storyline. In spite of Travolta’s solid acting, the movie still seemed overall disorganized and amateurish.
“Speeds Kill” would have been an enjoyable action film if not for the uneven plot, multi-decade jump and lack of good cinematography, resulting in a featureless knockoff of seemingly every true-crime movie in recent history. This film is not for viewers looking for a thrilling, action-filled plot.
“Speed Kills” is rated R and is currently available to watch on a variety of online streaming services such as Amazon Prime, Youtube, Google Play, Vudu and Apple itunes.
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