Alex Hess 

Why I’d like to be … Keanu Reeves in Speed

He began the 90s with Bill and Ted's silliness and ended them with The Matrix's existential angst, but in between came Keanu Reeves's greatest role as Jack Traven, a taciturn, tough-guy cop who oozed charisma. Just getting the job done never looked so cool, writes Alex Hess
  
  

Keanu Reeves in Speed
Straight as a bullet … Keanu Reeves in Speed. Photograph: Allstar Photograph: Sportsphoto/Allstar

“Do not attempt to grow a brain,” Dennis Hopper warns Keanu Reeves’s tough-guy cop Jack Traven in Speed, a line that sums up a time in my life when the path to success seemed simple. Before my movie idols were anarchist fistfighters and lovestruck noir gumshoes, the recipe for coolness as demonstrated by Keanu Reeves in the summer of ‘94, was blindingly obvious and strangely achievable: chew gum, do a lot of intense squinting and – crucially – speak as little as possible.

Whenever Speed crops up on TV, it’s hard not to be swept back to a time when being Jack Traven was the simple but unattainable extent of a life’s ambitions. The character was an uncomplicated splice of Reeves’ two breakout roles: Bill and Ted’s endearing simpleton and Point Break’s gung-ho lawman. On top of his obvious aesthetic appeal – good looks, biceps bulging through his Swat gear, the ability to whip a sports car around hairpin bends without breaking sweat – he planted the idea that a guy didn’t need to be a smooth-talking extrovert to reach the pinnacle of cool (or indeed to invite the advances of attractive commuters at the end of a hard day’s bomb disposal).

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Traven didn’t go about firing verbal take-downs in all directions: he was a doer rather than a talker, and so it was reassuring to discover that my own impulse for keeping social interaction to an minimum was compatible with an action hero’s smouldering charisma.

“Do not attempt to grow a brain” could have also served as a tagline for one of the finest Hollywood action films in a golden era for the genre: Con Air, Face/Off, The Rock, Air Force One, Broken Arrow and Bad Boys. But Speed stood out above the rest because, while all his peers were busy dispatching their bad guys with a knowingly raised eyebrow, Reeves played his hero as straight as a bullet. Nicolas Cage and John Travolta were meta-merchants. Arnie was sliding into self-awareness. Bruce Willis flaunted the gift of the gab. But Reeves showed little interest in chitchat and was all the better for it. Traven’s capacity to get his job done with a minimum of unfunny asides is something that appeals to anyone who covets the misanthrope’s life.

Hopper’s advice wasn’t heeded, though. Reeves soon did attempt to grow a brain. The Matrix may have been a blockbusting, era-defining success, it may have reshaped the action genre’s landscape for the millennial generation, it may even have elevated Reeves to the zenith of his leather-trousered stardom – but Neo, with his cutting-edge coding skills and half-finished Baudrillard textbooks, was an action hero with A-levels. And no schoolkid actually wanted A-levels.

I guess we all have to grow a brain in the end. But even so, Speed-era Keanu Reeves lives on as an enduring reminder that reverting back to the good old days remains one of life’s simple pleasures.

 

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