‘Get Fast’ VOD Review
Stars: James Clayton, Philip Granger, Simon Chin, Lee Majdoub, Fei Ren, Lou Diamond Phillips, Alisha-Marie Ahamed, James Hutson, Suleiman Abutu, Bradley Stryker | Written by James Clayton, Cooper Bibaud | Directed by James Clayton
Get Fast opens in the midst of a chase involving two cars and a small plane that turns into a shootout that pits The Thief (James Clayton; Residue, Helix) and Vic (Philip Granger; Tucker and Dale vs Evil, Cosmic Dawn) against Tank (Simon Chin; Always Be My Maybe, Sonic the Hedgehog 2) and Sly (Lee Majdoub; Puppet Killer, Dead Rising: Endgame).
By the time it’s over, Tank has a large hole where his stomach was, and The Thief is in possession of two large bags of cash. The problem is, that cash belonged to Tank’s sister Nushi (Fei Ren; Polar, The Romeo Section), a ruthless, crime boss who’s dispatched her top gun The Cowboy (Lou Diamond Phillips; Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part One, Young Guns) to get it back and is happy to use Vic as a bargaining chip.
Sly has been taken into custody by a pair of crooked cops, Ravi (Alisha-Marie Ahamed; The Haunting of Bly Manor, Doomsday Mom) and Don (James Hutson; Replicant, Dark Harvest) who also want the money and are every bit as ruthless as Nushi and her crew. Caught in the midst of all this is Tom (Suleiman Abutu; Almost Unsolved, I Am Somebody’s Child: The Regina Louise Story), an anxiety ridden ice cream truck driver who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Get Fast is a sequel to Clayton’s directorial debut, the less-than-thrilling crime thriller Bullet Proof, in which The Thief and Vic found themselves on the wrong side of another psychotic mob boss, Temple, played by Vinny Jones. He once again directs, but this time, he also co-wrote the script with Cooper Bibaud (Love/Hate, Heel Kick!) and seems to have learned from the previous film’s shortcomings.
The improvement over Bullet Proof is noticeable almost from the start, with better action scenes and a more energetic performance from Clayton. His portrayal of The Thief still channels Paul Walker, something the title makes hard to miss, but Clayton does put considerably more effort into his performance and his character is considerably more likeable. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast don’t fare quite as well. Cowboy is described as a “charming hitman” but he’s just another cold-blooded killer for hire with nothing charming about him. Philip Granger has little screen time to do anything with his character.
Most of the secondary characters are familiar villainous archetypes that don’t give the actors a lot to work with. As Tom, Suleiman Abutu does manage some funny moments, but his character is too familiar and lacks any kind of development that would let him make it stand out. He still fares better than veteran character actor Bradley Stryker (Vindicta, Terrifier 3) who’s wasted as a henchman.
The action scenes are what make or break a film like Get Fast and to its credit the film has plenty of them, and they’re nicely staged with several gun fights, fist fights and chase scenes to keep things moving along. The final chase, which involves a semi, a chopper, several other vehicles and some heavy weaponry, is a fitting climax to the story. As an added bonus, it looks like they actually crashed the semi rather than relying on CGI. There are some computer-generated explosions, but they’re not bad as such things go.
Overall, while Clayton still needs to polish his writing skills a bit, he’s delivered a solid second film that packs a lot of enjoyable action scenes into ninety minutes. Hopefully, he can continue to improve for his planned third film about The Thief, we can use all the good action films we can get.
*** 3/5
Well Go USA has released Get Fast on Digital and VOD Platforms.
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