I consider myself something of a cinephile, so I hope I don’t shock you with this take, but I have found that 1994’s Speed, starring Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Dennis Hopper, and Jeff Daniels, is FAR AND AWAY the best film to ever feature a bus that will explode if it goes below fifty miles per hour.
And before you say anything else, I am certainly well-versed in this particular area. In fact, I have devoted much of my pandemic time diving into the history of bomb-strapped runaway bus filmmaking, dating back to Dario La Matteo’s tremendous Autobus in Corsa in 1943, though many will argue that Wolfgang Hemmler’s 1976 classic Außer Kontrolle Geranter Bus might actually be the true gem of the bunch.
See? I’ve got my bonafides here, and I can confidently say after twenty-five viewings that, despite the numerous greats that came before it, Speed is by far the true masterpiece of this genre.
The cinematography. The score. The way Hopper yells, “Don’t fuck with Daddy!” with such raw, tortured emotion while downing sodas and monitoring his terrorist plot on multiple television screens like the conductor of his own demented orchestra. Reeves throwing his body around with reckless abandon in the desperate race to get everyone off the bus safely. Bullock, thrust into a hero role of her own, navigating the bus through Los Angeles as we, the audience, navigate our wide range of emotions while absorbing this art on the screen.
And who could forget Daniels, resigned to his fate as he realizes he’s been duped by Hopper’s Howard Payne, and will soon be consumed by a fiery explosion? The expression on Daniels’ face is haunting, as is ours as an audience, as we are are faced with the notion that this might in fact be the peak of action filmmaking, and we will forever spend the rest of our lives chasing an experience that is somehow, as inconceivable as it might be, more adrenaline-pumping than Speed.
Speed was not the first movie to feature a runaway bus that would explode if it were to go under fifty miles per hour, and it certainly won’t be the last. But nothing before or since has better tapped into the shared human experience of being in a situation like this (who among us hasn’t been on a bus that would explode if it were to dip under fifty miles per hour?), and I truly doubt any ever will.
The world is a better place with Speed in it, though it is a deep, profound despair in some respects, knowing nothing could come close to matching its impact, let alone surpass it. This is the high cost of experiencing transcendental art and, of course, experiencing life itself. Unadulterated joy and utter sadness wrapped into one interlocking web, jockeying for supremacy, often indistinguishable from one another.
Our wide, ever-expanding array of bomb-on-a-runaway-bus films certainly recognize this, but only Speed had the courage to truly tap into it.
We’ll never have it this good again.
To experience more Speed, be sure to listen to our Revenge of the ’90s episode on this truly perfect film. You can also check it out on Apple, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts.