Fast Track: No Limits Review by Bobby LePire. Edited by Courtney McAllister.

 

This German/ British/ Canadian co-production is so dumb, it’s remarkable. Ostensibly about Berlin’s underground street racing scene, this film has so many tangents and subplots that the movie is its own worst enemy. This ‘and the kitchen sink too’ stupidity is also what makes it such a great watch.

 

The awfulness starts with the characters, who range from insufferable bitches to intriguing, but not fully developed. Garage owner/ mechanic/ street race driver backer/ main protagonist Katie Reed (Erin Cahill) is a manipulative bitch. Our introduction to her is her trying to get a bank accountant to put his job on the line for her because the garage isn’t doing so hot. She only does worse things from here. Like when her boyfriend crashes during a race (non-fatally), and she runs off and screws someone else, because she needed the winnings from that race to clear her from the red. Katie is then shocked and annoyed when her boyfriend stops hanging around (he saw her cheating). The fact that Katie never becomes out and out hateable is attributable to Cahill’s performance. Believably spouting off the car lingo (gibberish? I don’t speak car… at all, so I am not sure if it’s authentic or not), she exudes a strong presence, but the character’s actions are fucked in so many ways it’s impossible to give a damn.

 

Joseph Beattie plays her rookie detective boyfriend, Eric, who moonlights as an illegal street racer. The character could be interesting, but Beattie has two facial expressions- angry/ sad- and one speaking voice- whispered monotone. His more dramatic moments fall flat thanks to his severely limited range. Pasquale Aleardi is main villain Gregor Gravolov, gangster of some repute. He’s menacing, but the script gives him cliches and squat to work with. Having seen this twice, I am still unsure as to what he was attempting to do or why.

 

Andrew W. Walker is “Pizza Guy” Mike, because he’s a pizza delivery boy trying desperately to prove his worth within the street racing world. His arc and characterization are some of the best in the film. Walker not only gets a boost from the best writing in the film, but he gives the second best performance. Clearly having a blast, exuding a believable carefree attitude, he’s quite solid here. The best performance is given by Alexia Barlier as rich, educated Nicole Devereaux. It’s a complex, emotionally honest bit of acting that constantly reveals new depths to her character. Nicole’s married, she and her husband “have a life separate from each other”, so she gets involved with Mike. This is an interesting angle, as Nicole “loves her husband very much and would never leave him”, they have an open relationship. While I wish this were explored to greater effect, I am glad it’s here at all. Building on top of the decent foundation, there’s such a joy given to her as she discovers and eventually fully integrates herself into this world (I might have been able to relate to her the best as she’s also a non-car person on the scene).

 

As stated in the character descriptions, Katie Reed is not above doing unsavory things to get ahead. Aside from the already stated moments of bitchiness, she lies constantly to her employees at the garage. She goes on and on throughout the movie about the importance of family because she has a tragic backstory of dead parents because of course she does (!) and calls her coworkers family but doesn’t tell them the truth about how dire the financial situation really is. God, I want her to die! Despite all her talk of family, she’s not open to making any new friends or reaching out for help. When Nicole first shows up at the garage, Katie just dislikes her for no real reason. Not the best idea to treat your clientele like the enemy. Mike keeps asking to prove himself as a racer, and just because he delivers pizzas on a moped, she won’t back him for one race (I am serious). When you make Vin DIesel’s speech in the first “The Fast & The Furious” about why/ how Paul Walker is now a member of their makeshift family sound like it is Oscar-worthy, you are doing something very wrong (mind you, I greatly enjoy the “F&F” franchise).

 

“Fast Track: No Limits” does something so pointless and stupid that it’s probably one of the moments that made me laugh hardest. It tries to interconnect each main and major supporting character in very contrived ways- after immediately hating our leading lady, we cut to various parts of Berlin to see what everyone else is doing. Eric is about to ticket Nicole for driving on the sidewalk because there’s a terrible traffic jam. She’s arguing that if she did kill any pedestrians it’d be a sort of natural selection since they were too dumb to get out of the way of a two ton steel death machine (yet just another reason she’s the best character here). If you thought that this would somehow impact the plot at all once she got into the street racing world, nope! They don’t interact again until the end! Mike’s connections to everyone else almost works- he delivers pizza to Katie’s garage, the police department, the gangster’s house- and he’s Nicole’s guide through the rest of the film. But thanks to this film’s desire to never settle on just one plot, **this seems more forced to connect everyone then a natural part of the story.**

 

So the two main plots vying for attention and just trip each other go thusly-

 

The first plot involves Katie’s need to win a few major races to save her garage. Relationship with Eric. Mike/ Nicole subplot so the audience has a surrogate into the racing world. This could have been a perfectly fine, more dramatic film on its own.

 

Plot number two is Eric’s investigation of a recent robbery of a mafioso's money laundering front. He knows that the robbery was done by big deal racer, Wolf, who works for Gregor. He and his boss investigate. Mike gets recruited by Gregor to become his new wheelman. Eric needs to hide his hobby. This would have been a more action heavy film, and entirely interesting.

 

I didn’t even include all the subplots that continually abound (Eric and Mike’s constant and stupid rivalry), but you probably already see the issue. There’s so much plot thrown around in this movie it’s dizzying. The film doesn’t lack for action and driving scenes, so all of the plot is just dumped out, and we go long stretches without seeing how the investigation is going, or the next hit the gangster is planning. When they do show up, I hope you can recall what their motivation was.

 

The plot’s dumbest moment is near the end, just before the final, climactic race. (Slight spoilers ahead) Mike’s big arc (outside of his relationship with Nicole) is proving that he’s the best, and he does win, often. In order to get some payback/ revenge on Wolf, he recruits Eric to drive this race, because he (Mike) is not good enough. WTF? Movie, you are hilariously contradicting yourself! Eric shuffles out of the plot for awhile because he lost, hard, causing Katie to lose a decent pile of money (see above- she then screws someone else because she’s a bitch). Mike has already won against the person they’re racing, whereas (earlier) Eric was too scared to even bother racing him. So, how exactly is Eric- the car crashing, scared one- the right man for the job when we already know Mike can handily win against Wolf? Because this movie is dumber than paint. Excluding the pointless character connectivity, this is the thing I was laughing at the hardest and longest. The whole movie is built heading in a single direction (Mike’s worth and how he can help save Katie’s garage if she weren’t such a cuntmuffin), and it flings that aside because… because… I have no idea. I just know that it’s executed so melodramatically and makes no narrative sense I promise a giant smile will emerge every time you think about it. Either that, or the absence of logic will break your brain.

 

Let’s not delude ourselves that the script is the only problem. Director/ producer Axel Sand (too easy) has very little grasp on how to structure an action scene or keep the score from overpowering the dialogue. The opening title sequence is very TV show-esque. There’s a theme song set to a montage of various action beats throughout (too quickly edited to be spoilery at all), with our main characters having a moment and the actors’ names appearing at the bottom. While this was made for TV, it was not a failed launch for a show (theatrically released in China though). While during the races they used real cars, which is pretty cool, some of the rear projection/ green screen used to make it seem as if it’s our actors and not the stunt people driving is below even YouTube amateur standards.

 

The editing was done by a spastic monkey with its tail caught in a mousetrap. With frantic zooms and fade outs, sometimes before the scene has actually ended. Sand clearly loves cars, as those sequences (when not spliced to hell) are framed well enough and have enough zeal to make them fun. His non-car racing action moments, of which there’s a decent amount, aren’t nearly as good. The hand to hand fights are clunky and clearly staged. There’s a shootout between cops and robbers that’s so awkward, hard to follow, and poorly shot it’s migraine inducing. However, it does lead to a bag of urine being used as a weapon by Eric’s senior partner. That made my wife so deliriously slap happy, as she called it when it was introduced, it was worth the bad editing and awkward dutch angles for that alone. While the score is good, and at times, works very well with the onscreen action, it is also often too loud, drowning dialogue.

With five plots too many, one of the worst main characters this side of “The Amazing Spider-Man 2”, contradictory character elements, and editing that is damn near painful to look at, this movie shouldn’t be any fun. But, thanks to some good acting, a few good ideas (even though they aren’t explored enough), and a failed attempt at an epic hook, this wreck of a film emerges as a great MST3K-type contender.