The Forgotten 2010 Dwayne Johnson Action Thriller Flop Killing It On Netflix

For the first 10 years of his movie acting career, Dwayne Johnson was hungry to earn his bonafides as a serious performer. Oh sure, he was more than willing to play to the cheap seats by starring in stuff like "The Scorpion King" and "Doom." But this was also the era in which the wrestling legend worked with "Donnie Darko" director Richard Kelly on his gonzo cult curiosity "Southland Tales" and gleefully preened in front of a mirror as an out-and-proud gay bodyguard in F. Gary Gray's "Get Shorty" sequel "Be Cool." Having yet to establish a clean-cut brand for himself, the 2000s saw The Rock taking the kind of risks he would shirk for a decade after finally making it big in the movies.

That extended to Johnson's action films as well. When The Rock showed up as Luke Hobbs in 2011's "Fast Five" (only one of the greatest action movies of all time), the federal agent was far from the giant cinnamon roll he would become in later sequels and his spinoff. Instead, he was a tough ol' son-of-a-gun utterly determined to accomplish the task assigned to him, no questions asked. A year before that, though, Johnson played an even steelier, morally murkier antihero on a mission in "Faster," an action-thriller that puts a far darker spin on the theme of brotherhood than the similarly-titled "Fast & Furious" movies ever have. It also took in less during its entire run at the box office than most of those films grossed in their opening weekend alone ($35.8 million worldwide), making it but one of an ever-growing number of forgotten theatrical flops to gain an unexpected second shot at life on Netflix.

There really ought to be a scientific term at this point for genre movies that get broadly ignored in theaters only to become hits on Netflix years later when subscribers who've never even heard of them before, much less seen them, begin streaming them in huge numbers. Such is the case with "Faster," which — per the useful streaming viewership and date aggregator FlixPatrol — had climbed to the number two spot in Netflix's daily top 10 films in the U.S. as of December 4, 2024. Meanwhile, the streamer's original rom-com "Our Little Secret" continues to hold steady in first place, affirming that even Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is no match for Lindsay Lohan (naturally).

Written by siblings Joe and Tony Gayton (who would go on to create AMC's hit Western series "Hell on Wheels") and directed by George Tillman Jr. ("Notorious," "The Hate U Give"), "Faster" sees Johnson playing a convict who, fresh out of prison, loads up a gun and hops into his 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle to drive off and kill a group of people complicit in the death of his brother. Between its complicated sense of morality, bleak tone, and a twisty plot involving honorable hitmen and unscrupulous police detectives, "Faster" reads like it could've just as readily been a seedy neo-noir thriller as a high-octane shoot-em-up. In his mixed review, the late Roger Ebert even argued that the film would've been better off leaning harder into its noir trappings, writing:

"Faster" is a pure thriller, all blood, no frills, in which a lot of people get shot, mostly in the head. Rotate the plot, change the period, spruce up the dialogue, and this could have been a hard-boiled 1940s noir. But it doesn't pause for fine touches and efficiently delivers action for an audience that likes one-course meals.

Most critics seemed to have similar thoughts to Ebert back in 2010, judging by the film's 41 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. 14 years later, though, "Faster" might feel a little fresher and offer a glimpse of what Johnson is capable of when he's willing to go darker on screen ... and not in a "Black Adam" sort of way (which would also portend well for his upcoming turn in Benny Safdie's gritty sports biopic "The Smashing Machine"). There's only one way to find out: you can stream "Faster" on Netflix right now.