Faster

The Watch: Faster

The Perpetrators: Dwayne Johnson (he who used to be The Rock and has since graduated to his real-reel?- name), Billy Bob Thornton, Carla Gugino and a whole bunch of other peeps of varying fame.

The Dealio: Our 'hero' is a guy who is being released from prison after ex number of years. His bro and a motley group of his usual miscreant buds decide to rob a bank and need a wheelman. Bro asks Dwayne- famed, apparently, near and far for his wheel skills- volunteers to help a brother out. Unfortunately, several slimeoid types twig to the plan and boost the haul and, upon the orders of 'the boss', elect to kill off everyone of the original gang. That would be the 'good gang' as opposed to the 'bad gang', or, as I would prefer to call them, 'the scavenging gang'. Intersperse this whole gloopy melange with the flimsiest of plots, and pepper with oodles of gun violence (and some-from a medical standpoint- totally impossible recoveries) and high speed races/chases/escapes/tails, the entire motorised vehicle encyclopedia of mayhem. If you do not figure out who the boss is, and what is going on within the first 15 minutes, I would be shocked and dismayed. I just kept waiting for those who actually participated in the film to cotton onto what was going down. But, no!
OK, so, to sum up, now, out of jail, Driver is bent on revenge and tracks down all the participants in the post robbery bloodletting and elimination of our 'good gang'. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

The Grading Session: 1.73 pengies out of 5. There, that's not too terrific, is it? The flaw is not in Dwayne's acting- it is at least on par with Aahnold's and this bonbon , seems, at first blush, custom-tailored to his unique talent-set. The soundtrack was negligible, the characters rife with cliches and stereotypes. No new stuff here. Not even a new twist or spin on the old stuff. Simply a paycheck, I'm guessing.

Lessons Learned: Well, the obvious one would be not to take recommendations from this particular person any more. And also to assure that she gets out more to see, like, some actually good flix.
Next: if early on, someone announces that they have reached the peak with their present employment opportunity and need to look for something that offers a bit more of a rush...and that person is, like, 25 years old: watch out! You are either in the theatre watching The Social Network (wish!), or you are looking at a bad guy who is on shaky territory re: his own personal future. Run out of the theatre, because, with this very self-assessment, I spy yet another yawner of a cliche skimming along the horizon.
Lastly: Dwayne Johnson is, I believe, a capable actor who has done some fine work in the past (Get Shorty, anyone?), but he needs better material and more opportunities to flex his acting versatility, not just his guns. Pronto.