Story
Need For Speed opens with a spoken prologue from D.J. Monarch (Michael Keaton). Monarch hosts a car racing internet radio show and runs the annual infamous and highly illegal De Leon street race.The movie’s main character, Toby Marshal (Aaron Paul), lives in the town of Mount Kisco. Toby was a promising race car driver until he quit racing to build high performance cars. Toby’s old rival on the racetrack, Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper), made it to the big-time, racing Indy cars and owning his own elite car dealership. Unfortunately Toby is facing hard times and the loss of his family garage business. When Dino turns up out of the blue and offers Toby a deal to finish building a Ford Mustang, partially built by the legendary Carroll Shelby before he died, Toby can’t refuse his offer – 25% of whatever Dino sells the Mustang for.Toby and his friends build the car, which is bought by Julia (Imogen Poots), an English racing car enthusiast. Dino challenges Toby to a race in which the winner gets 100% of the sale price of the Mustang. But tragedy strikes when Dino causes a crash in the race, which kills Toby’s young workmate, Pete (Harrison Gilberson). Toby is falsely blamed for Pete’s death and sentenced to two years imprisonment.Two year later Toby is released from prison and immediately seeks revenge by planning to race against Dino in the De Leon street race. Toby borrows the Mustang and enlists Julia as his codriver. They take a high-speed, two-day jaunt across the country to San Francisco while being chased by the police and villains.Eventually Toby makes it to the start line. The race is on between him, Dino and four other competitors.
Themes
Illegal street racing: competitive car racing; false imprisonment; justice; revenge
Violence
Need for Speed has intense sequences of life-endangering and reckless street racing, which causes the destruction of property and the death of a character. There is also some action violence and occasional low-level blood and gore. Here are some examples:
Sexual references
Need for Speed has some sexual references. For example:
- A man says to a woman, ‘We’re mechanics – we’re not afraid of getting our hands dirty, know what I mean?’ The comment has sexual connotations.
- In a glass elevator a man is standing next to a woman. He has a naked upper chest and shoulders, and it looks like he’s naked. She looks down at the man’s groin and the man says, ‘It’s cold, I hear’.
- A naked man (seen from behind) chases another man. The second man calls the naked man ‘skinny boy’. The naked man responds, ‘Oh you were checking me out’.
- A woman talking about men driving big cars says, ‘It makes up for an inferiority complex’, and wiggles her little finger.
Alcohol, drugs and other substances
Need for Speed shows some use of substances. For example:
- At a restaurant and at a party, people drink wine, champagne and whiskey. No intoxication is shown.
- In a garage empty bottles of beer sit on a table. A man drinks from a bottle of beer. No intoxication is shown.
Nudity and sexual activity
Need for Speed has some nudity and sexual activity. For example:
- Some scenes show images of women wearing low-cut tops that reveal cleavage, tops that reveal midriff, and short shorts that reveal thighs and buttocks.
- A man strips off in an office until he is completely naked (seen from behind). When he is half undressed, he grabs a female office worker, kisses her on the mouth and says, ‘I always wanted to do that’.
- A woman swaps seats with a man driving a car. The woman sits on the man’s lap briefly.
- A man and woman kiss passionately on the lips.
Product placement
The following products are displayed or used in Need for Speed:
- High-performance street cars such as Mercedes SLS, Ford Mustang and Koenigsegg Agera
- Gucci boots.
Coarse language
Need for Speed has some medium-level crude and coarse language.
Ideas to discuss with your children
Need for Speed is based on the video game of the same name. It’s a fast action movie that will have a lot of appeal for younger and older teenage boys. It’s a lot like car stunt movies from the 1970s. All the stunts in this movie are done live rather than with CGI, which gives the stunts and car crashes more impact, realism and appeal for the target audience.
The movie’s lead actor is Aaron Paul from Breaking Bad, which will attract lots of audience attention. But it’s worth keeping in mind the impact of the fast car sequences and stunts on teenagers.
This movie doesn’t have any worthwhile messages. This is because its main themes are to do with revenge and illegal street racing involving property destruction and injury. The movie shows no realistic consequences for these activities.
Values in this movie that you could reinforce with your children include the following:
- Friendship: the movie promotes friendship as one of the most important values in life. Toby constantly relies on his close friends for support.
- Teamwork: Toby relies on his friends to work together as a team.
This movie could also give you the chance to talk with your children about real-life issues such as the following:
- In real life, what would be the physical, legal, emotional and financial consequences of the accidents caused by illegal street car racing?
- This movie is dominated by male characters. It also sexually objectifies women. What effect might this have on the movie’s target audience?