Product Details

• Actors: Keanu Reeves, Dennis Hopper, Sandra Bullock, Joe Morton, Jeff Daniels
• Directors: Jan de Bont
• Writers: Graham Yost
• Producers: Allison Lyon Segan, Ian Bryce, Mark Gordon
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Letterboxed, THX, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
• VHS Release Date: August 20, 1996
• Run Time: 116 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (228 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304117310
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #78,731 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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• This is item 1 in The Speed Series.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Everything clicked in this 1994 action hit, from the premise (a city bus has to keep moving at 50 mph or blow up) to the two leads (the usually inscrutable Keanu Reeves and the cute-as-a-button Sandra Bullock) to the villain (Dennis Hopper in psycho mode) to the director (Jan De Bont, who made this film hit the ground running with an edge-of-your-seat opening sequence on a broken elevator). This is the sort of movie that becomes a prototype for a thousand lesser films (including De Bont's lousy sequel, Speed 2: Cruise Control), but Speed really is a one-of-a-kind experience almost anyone can enjoy. --Tom Keogh

From The New Yorker
Trouble on the Los Angeles freeway. Evil mastermind Dennis Hopper (who else?) is a disgruntled psycho who wires a bomb to the bottom of a city bus. If the speed drops below fifty, boom. Enter Keanu Reeves as a young cop who is one step behind Hopper, but catching up fast; we are way behind the movie, which outwits our expectations at every turn. The director is Jan De Bont, who used to be a cameraman; this is his first feature, and he sees the plot through in a surge of bright images. The result is clean, delirious, and, yes, speedy-the best big-vehicle-in-peril movie since Clouzot's "The Wages of Fear." But that film offered a vision of human duplicity pitted against a dour fate; De Bont's work is a mindlessly cheerful occasion for high humor, initiative, and good luck-and a great, gutsy turn from Sandra Bullock as a passenger who finds herself behind the wheel of the bus. You leave the theatre exhausted, and blissed out. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Speed, April 3, 2008

By	Kelly "Reviewer for The Sinfully Sensuous" (Littleton, Colorado) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Speed (Widescreen Edition) (DVD)

This is one of those rare action/suspense movies that will far surpass your expectations. You will be on the edge of your seat a lot because the suspense build up is done that well. The cast is what impressed me the most. I knew what to expect with the Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves pairing, but the supporting characters were a surprise as they were outstanding. Jeff Daniels is always wonderful on screen. Dennis Hopper was great as the lunatic holding them hostage.

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pop Quiz Hotshot!, July 10, 2002

By	A. Ross "indy31" (New Zealand) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Speed (Five Star Collection) (DVD)

Remember that Simpsons episode where Homer loops a videotape of him and the guys working while they goof off "I saw this in a movie where there was a bus and it had to keep it's SPEED above 50 and if it's SPEED dropped, the bus would explode! I think it was called: The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down!" Even Homer realises the cleverness of Jan De Bont's tautly-directed action thriller.

Starring Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Dennis Hopper and Jeff Daniels, Speed is one of those rare films that comes along every now and then that proves to be better than standard fare. Essentially one big extended action scene, the film's frenetic pace makes up for the frequent plot holes. The action never lets up, creating suspense- filled set-pieces and audience excitement. The premise of a bomb on a bus that wil explode if the speed goes below 50 makes for one far-fetched but fun thrill ride.

Keanu is the quintessential gum-chewing cool guy action hero Jack Traven who, along with Annie Porter (Bullock) tries not to get blown up by a bomb that retired cop Howard Payne (Hopper) has set on the bus to get money. The entire principal cast are great, especially Hopper, whose character is reminiscent of his crazy bad guy in Red Rock West (1992). With lines like "Poor people are crazy Jack, I'm eccentric", Hopper manages to give a good performance during his rather short screen time. Plus the added quality of the always-good Daniels is first-rate. And Keanu, now best known for The Matrix, is equally cool here.

Jan DeBont's direction makes the film a taut, entertaining action ride, and surprisingly, Bullock manages to change from nervy bus passenger to a strong character by the film's conclusion. And the pulse-driven score creates even more tension and excitement. But the film is not perfect, it's predictable at times and things get rather tedious at the end, with yet another gasping of "The track's not finished!" Minor quibbles aside, the action is impressive, and Jan DeBont's visual stylishness gives a really eye-catching look. This action-fest is one of the best.

The DVD extras are amazing, with commentaries from De Bont and the crew, extended scenes, Easter Eggs (DVD Credits, Airline Version of Bus Crash), "Inside Speed Featurettes on the location, stunts and visual effects", production Design, the original Screenplay, action Sequence Featurettes on the "Bus Jump" and "Metro Rail Crash", Multi-Angle Shots with Audio, Multi-Stream Storyboards, an interview Archive with Keanu Reeves and the cast, trailers, 11 TV Spots and production notes. Impressive stuff!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Modern classic gets the treatment it deserves, September 30, 2002

By	Libretio - See all my reviews

This review is from: Speed (Five Star Collection) (DVD)

At long last, SPEED (1994) has been given the bells-and-whistles DVD treatment it so thoroughly deserves. That rarity in modern American cinema - a high concept bubblegum movie which lives up to its own hype and doesn't insult the audience's intelligence - the film offers a three-act scenario (elevator, bus and subway) in which a ruthless terrorist (Dennis Hopper) pits his considerable bomb-making skills against the local SWAT team's finest agents, led by a pumped-up Keanu Reeves (whose career was subsequently launched into orbit, reaching iconic status in the ultra-popular MATRIX series). In one of the commentaries provided by Fox's 'Five Star Collection' DVD, producer Mark Gordon (SAVING PRIVATE RYAN) and writer Graham Yost (BROKEN ARROW) cheerfully acknowledge the film's one-dimensional characters and obvious plot-holes whilst celebrating the ultra-slick production values and breathtaking action sequences. And it IS slick: Debut director Jan de Bont (an erstwhile cinematographer, usually associated with Paul Verhoeven) has marshalled a note-perfect creative team on both sides of the camera, turning Yost's modest screenplay into a super-charged thrill-machine, photographed (by Andrzej Bartkowiak) and edited (by John Wright) to perfection, and augmented by some of the best stuntwork and visual effects that money can buy. The cast is dependable and solid: Reeves and Hopper make a formidable virtue of their opposing characters, and leading lady Sandra Bullock 'makes cute' in a career-making performance, while Jeff Daniels (DUMB & DUMBER) and Joe Morton (THE BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET) offer strong support in crucial secondary roles.

It could be argued that the film's narrative simplicity doesn't lend itself to the kind of intense scrutiny offered by Fox's fully-loaded two-disc presentation, but it's churlish to quibble - this is knee-slapping entertainment at its finest, and likely to be recognized as such for decades to come, alongside the likes of DIE HARD and the TERMINATOR franchise. Accordingly, the supplements are more than welcome: Aside from the commentaries, there are various trailers, featurettes, multi-angle stunt comparisons, and a reproduction of the original screenplay (not much different from the finished product), amongst other bits and pieces. The film itself - which runs 115m 44s - has never looked or sounded better on home video, with the Panavision frame reproduced at 2.35:1 (enhanced for 16:9 TV's), preserving all the color and clarity of a pristine theatrical print. However, on the disc viewed, there's a technical blip at 76:01 in which the image momentarily freezes and breaks up. The fault amounts to little more than one second of screen time, but given the disc's THX certification, it's unfortunate, to say the least. The soundtrack is terrific, providing fully immersive sonic thrills in both Dolby and DTS 5.1 options. English captions and subtitles are provided.

There are two notable drawbacks: Firstly, during the aforementioned Yost/Gordon commentary, both men interrupt each other on numerous occasions, sometimes on a shot-by-shot basis, curtailing more than a few fascinating anecdotes and transforming much of their freewheeling discourse into a halting exercise in frustration. Most curiously of all, they deliberately retreat from a potentially unpleasant story about Ellen De Generes which might have shown these two gentlemen in a less than flattering light. No wonder the disc opens with a disclaimer which distances Fox from the opinions expressed herein... Nevertheless, much of their conversation remains of interest, particularly their thoughts on the direction of modern action cinema post 9/11/2001. Secondly, there is no mention of the Japanese thriller THE BULLET TRAIN (Shinkansen Daibakuha, 1975), in which a terrorist bomb is primed to explode on board a packed commuter train if it falls below a certain speed. It's possible that SPEED was written and produced in complete ignorance of the earlier film, but the two scenarios share uncomfortable similarities. Besides, many reviews have already drawn attention to these narrative parallels, which leads one to wonder why they weren't addressed by this 'special edition', if only to deny a connection between the two films.