‘Speed’ Writer Has Solution for Keanu Reeves Plot Hole Now
Speed is one of Keanu Reeves’ biggest movies. Reeves plays LAPD officer Jack Traven, who has to prevent a bus full of passengers from exploding. He does so by jumping onto it and keeping it going over 50 miles per hour. Speed features many improbable, but awesome stunts, like jumping the freeway gap, but there was one plot hole the screenwriter still kicks himself for not noticing.
Graham Yost was a guest on the ScriptApart podcast on Aug. 17, 2021 to discuss his script for Speed. Yost remembers New York Times critic Janet Maslin calling out a plot hole. Now he knows how he’d fix it, but he didn’t think of it before the movie came out in 1994.
The ‘Speed’ plot hole with Keanu Reeves’ character
It takes a good half hour before Speed introduces the bus. First, Traven helps foil the bombing of a high rise elevator. But, the bomber (Dennis Hopper) survives and rigs the bus. It’s when Traven chases the bus that Maslin noticed the plot hole.
“There was a big plot hole that I had not considered until I read it in Janet Maslin’s review in the New York Times,” Yost said on Script Apart. “Swear to God, I just hadn’t thought of it which is he’s running after the bus. It hasn’t yet gone 50. It’s only going about 15, 20 miles an hour, he’s chasing it. He’s got a gun. Why doesn’t he just shoot out the tires? I didn’t even think of that.”
This is how Graham Yost would’ve fixed the ‘Speed’ plot hole with Keanu Reeves
It’s especially upsetting to Yost because the fix is so simple. It would’ve only involved one extra stunt for Reeves to eliminate that solution, and then proceed with the rest of Speed.
“If we had thought of that, we would’ve had him pull his gun and get bumped by a car,” Yost said. “And his gun goes sliding under a bunch of cars and now he’s got no choice. We would’ve fixed it but we didn’t even think of it.”
Even Janet Maslin forgave the plot hole
Far fewer people criticize Traven letting the bus get up to speed than talk about the freeway jump. And even that didn’t ruin Speed for Maslin.
“It occurred to the woman who reviewed it in the New York Times,” Yost said. “So that’s why Janet Maslin would have her job but she still liked the movie. That was the thing.”
To be honest, after dozens of viewings of Speed since 1994, that one didn’t stand out either. All movies get a little bit of slack if they’re good enough, and Speed definitely is. Yost credits the cast and filmmakers with shielding his script from some of the scrutiny.
“Because of Keanu and because of, I can call her Sandy, but because of Sandra Bullock and all the other casting and because of the script and because of the rewriting that Joss Whedon did which was even funnier than anything I had in there, the film built a great deal of good will,” Yost said. “So that the audience was willing to go with things.”
