Get Fast
Indie action sequel made for 12-year-olds at heart.
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“Get Fast” (available on VOD beginning Friday, Nov. 15) is the sequel to the 2022 indie action flick “Bullet Proof” (my review here – the film is also available to stream on Prime Video). I liked that movie well enough despite its budgetary limitations and inherent cheesiness and it’s fair to say “Get Fast” betters its predecessor at almost every turn.
The Thief (James Clayton, who also returns to co-write, produce and direct – my interview with him here) and his partner/mentor Vic (Philip Granger) have pulled another “last score” – this time stealing millions in cash from ruthless drug queenpin Nushi (Fei Ren).
During their getaway Vic gets nabbed and Nushi demands her money back lest the old man get it. A cadre of killers including The Cowboy (Lou Diamond Phillips), Punk (Bradley Stryker), Sly (Lee Majdoub, Agent Stone from the “Sonic the Hedgehog” movies) and Tank (Simon Chin) are after The Thief on Nushi’s behalf as are crooked cops Ravi (Alisha-Marie Ahamed) and Don (James Hutson), who want their own piece of the pie.
The Thief ropes orphaned prospective entrepreneur Tom (Suleiman Abutu) into his trouble when he attempts to jack the young man’s ice cream truck as an escape vehicle. Now Tom’s on the run too.
“Bullet Proof” had a very cheesy 1980s/early ‘90s action movie vibe and “Get Fast” doubles down on these stylistic tics. This is the sort of flick that rousingly plays Stan Bush’s nice “Dare” from “The Transformers: The Movie” not once but twice. The first movie was comprised mostly of car chases – here airplanes, helicopters and motorcycles are also incorporated into the chaos. It’s bigger, badder and better while still being lean (clocking in right around an hour and a half) and not especially mean (the movie periodically pauses to build a real rapport between Clayton’s Thief and Abutu’s Tom).
Abutu, especially, is a charmer lending the proceedings considerable humor and heart. I found Clayton to be likable when I interviewed him and his likability extends to the screen. He’s cool as a cucumber here and kind of comes across like a sane, chattier, brunette spin on Ryan Gosling’s Driver from “Drive.” Phillips, a seasoned pro I’ve appreciated since his late 1980s heyday of “La Bamba” and “Young Guns,” does a lot with a little here. He looks boss in his cowboy costume and imbues this bad boy with hues of humanity.
“Get Fast” kind of feels like an Andy Sidaris movie minus the cheesecake factor as it’s mostly just boys playing with their toys. It’s essentially an hour and a half chase sequence/shoot-out with flashes of real humanity. I suspect Clayton made it for his inner 12-year-old and on that level my inner 12-year-old dug it.