Picture the scene: you’re walking through your local HMV (other retailers are available) and you’re looking to buy a movie because you’ve got the boys coming over for some gaming and beers. The perfect genre to pick for such an occasion is the ‘dumb but rather fun’ action flick – a film that is for all intensive purposes awful, yet is entertaining to an extent. Enter Kill Speed (2010).
Kill Speed is an apparently high octane action film starring former WCW and WWE wrestler Bill Goldberg, Terminator 2’s Robert Patrick, Heroes’ mind reading cop Greg Grunberg and Backstreet Boy Nick Carter. The premise of the film revolves around a bunch of drug smugglers who get their wares over the border by using ‘supersonic’ planes. But when a big deal worth $2.7 million rears its head, the FBI get involved and it soon becomes a game of cat and mouse for the ‘Flyboyz’ (they have a ‘z’ in their name – they must be cool).
Sounds like it’s the perfect fit for the ‘dumb but rather fun’ action genre right? Well it’s not. Kill Speed is utter rubbish of the worst kind. It’s obnoxious, boring, dull, badly written, poorly directed, terribly acted and just all round drivel.
First off, to paraphrase Lionel Hutz, “This is the biggest case of false advertising since The Neverending Story”. Don’t believe the hype of apparent stars Bill Goldberg and Robert Patrick – the pair have a combined screen time of around two minutes and neither of them are worth mentioning. Both participants simply throw out two very lazy ‘phoned in’ performances – and when Bill Goldberg phones in a performance, you know you’re in trouble.
I didn’t even know that The Backstreet Boys were still going, but having now seen Nick Carter act, I’d rather hope they stick to doing their rubbish music and keeping it away from my ears. It’s not simply a case of bad acting; it’s a case of atrocious and annoying acting. Granted, half the issue comes from the terrible dialogue he’s given, but he doesn’t exactly do himself any favours.
As for the actual plot of Kill Speed, it’s not even worth talking about. Despite assertions to the contrary, The ‘Flyboyz’ don’t fly supersonic 300mph planes. They own three beaten up and broken down bi-planes that can barely take off, let alone break the sound barrier. Instead, they simply sit around delivering reams and reams of terrible dialogue in between wandering around from pointless scene to pointless scene.
Kill Speed is an awful film. It doesn’t even fall into the ‘so bad it’s good’ territory. Avoid at all costs, steer clear and advise everyone you know to do the same – no one should ever have to endure this film.
Luke Owen