Upamanyu Biswas
At the end of ‘Faster,’ Jimmy Cullen’s single-minded quest to find the perpetrators behind his brother Gary’s death leads him to a rendezvous with the chasing assassin simply known as Killer and his mysterious client. Although seemingly disparate plot threads, a new revelation alludes to a connection between Gary’s murderer and the one who sicced Killer on the protagonist’s tail. Meanwhile, Jimmy faces an existential crisis after running into another group member he is hunting down, who has remade his life in a different guise, showcasing his ability to change and the potential for a second chance. It compels him to rethink his stance and the uncompromising vendetta that has taken over his life but may have blindsided him in the long run. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Faster Plot Synopsis
After a long prison stint, Jimmy Cullen, a convicted heist driver, is released from prison and allowed to enter back into civilian life. He heads off to a nearby auto shop, where he finds his old car in an undamaged state. Inside, Jimmy finds a revolver and a folder containing names of high value. Subsequently, the protagonist drives to an office in the city and shoots a man named Prescott Ashton at point-blank range in the middle of the day in front of all his co-workers. The case gets picked up by the local police, with Detective Cicero and Humphries leading the charge for Jimmy’s capture. Meanwhile, the former convict drives to a private investigation firm, Grone’s Investigations, and meets with P.I. Roy Grone, the person who helped Jimmy procure his list and gun inside his car.
Jimmy gathers more information from Grone about the names and addresses of a number of people like Prescott before he heads out the door. As it turns out, Jimmy is on a revenge mission to kill the people who sabotaged a bank heist he and his brother Gary pulled off with two other guys right before his incarceration. They ambushed Jimmy and his crew while they were in their safe house, killing everyone before absconding with the cash. One of them slit his brother Gary’s throat right before his eyes. Moments later, Jimmy was shot in the back of the head. He only managed to survive because of an emergency surgery that installed a metal plate in the back of his head. With his prison stint over, Jimmy is now on a revenge mission to hunt down every person involved in the sabotage operation that led to Gary’s death.
Jimmy heads off to dispose of another crew member. Meanwhile, the hitman, Killer, is handed an assignment to hunt him down. The professional assassin decides to take up the job as a commemorative last mission before settling down with his partner, Lily. He runs into Jimmy at the Casa Grande apartment complex, where the former kills Kenneth Tyson, a disturbing man with a taste for recording videos of strangers. After an altercation with Killer in the hallway, Jimmy leaves the building to seek out his former girlfriend, who lives peacefully with a new husband and two children. Subsequently, the protagonist tracks down the next person on the list, Hovis Nixon, a strip club bouncer who had a direct hand in Gary’s death, albeit not the mastermind behind the plan.
Faster Ending: Who Was Behind Gary’s Death?
The big mystery propelling the central plot of ‘Faster’ is Gary’s death. Throughout the narrative, Jimmy hunts down each member of the sabotage operation with the hopes of alighting upon the truth of the matter. However, he already knows the identity of the person who killed Gary—the strip club bouncer Hovis Nixon. Jimmy fights him in the club’s bathroom and fatally wounds him, thinking that he has finally ended his life. However, Nixon manages to survive and is taken into critical care at the local hospital. The protagonist retraces his steps and heads to the hospital, where he disposes of him once and for all. Despite this, the identity of the person who organized the sabotage operation remains elusive to Jimmy. It is not until the end that he learns that the person in charge is none other than Detective Slade Humphries.
Initially, Jimmy assumes that the saboteur’s likeliest candidate must be his father. His old man had been unhappy about his and Gary’s plan to pull off the bank robbery and not include him in the take. As such, the protagonist believes that their father must have taken out his frustration by organizing a hit on Jimmy and Gary, inevitably killing the latter despite their blood ties. However, during a visit to his mother, Jimmy learns that his father passed away a long time ago, making it impossible for him to have organized the sabotage mission. Additionally, the father cared too much for Gary to have him killed in cold blood. Instead, the person who leaked the information about Jimmy and Gary’s plan and their safe house was the latter’s girlfriend, Marina, who was acting as an informant under Humphries at the time.
The detective used Marina’s information to get ahead of Jimmy and Gary’s robbery, stealing their take and leaving them for dead. In the aftermath of Jimmy’s prison release and his first kill, Humphries began panicking as he feared that the protagonist might come after him eventually. He begged his superiors to let him handle the case personally. That way, he could keep a close eye on Jimmy and capture him before anything terrible happens to him, either through an attempt on his life or the revelation of the details behind his corrupt scandal. Nonetheless, his life since the robbery had gone slightly awry because of a divorce from Marina, with whom he fathered a child. At the start of the movie, he is in a terrible state and tries as hard as possible to rectify the situation without landing in hot waters.
Why Does Killer Walk Away? Does He Go Back to His Wife?
Killer’s life becomes complicated after he is tasked with hunting down Jimmy. Initially, he treats it like any regular job, trusting his skills and his proven track record to lead him to a successful hunt. However, after engaging the protagonist in a few altercations, he realizes that Jimmy has a strange aura about him, mainly because of his nothing-to-lose attitude, which makes him a formidable opponent. He becomes enamored with Jimmy’s strength and his single-mindedness. The relationship becomes so intense that Killer starts visualizing it as a rivalry, albeit a one-sided one, as Jimmy remains focused on his personal revenge mission. This uncaring attitude creates even more frustration in Killer’s mind and makes him even more resolute to hunt down his prey to prove a point.
In the end, Killer arrives at the revival tent center, where Jimmy meets reformed evangelist Alexander Jerrod. Despite being told that he is no longer required to handle the mission, the assassin does not give up on the task and makes it a very personal mission to kill Jimmy. However, after Humphries shows up, he is forced to stand down as the detective handles the task alone. During the interaction, the assassin learns that his client is none other than Humphries himself, who, unsure of his capacity to kill Jimmy, had hired a professional hitman to carry out the job. Once Killer witnesses Humphries carry out the mission, he walks away without even collecting his meager $1 payment. The low sum showcases his passion for his job and his dedication to the art of killing, which is also aptly reflected in his moniker.
Throughout the narrative, Killer faces a dilemma between his love for his assassin profession and his love for his girlfriend, Lily. He is constantly torn between the two, never able to decide which is more valuable to him at one stage or another. Halfway through the story, Killer proposes marriage to Lily, and the two tie the knot in a quick, surreal manner, which emphasizes Killer’s erratic personality. His attitude is one of commitment, no matter the task at hand, whether an assassination job or his dedication to his new wife. However, he gets led astray by his rivalry with Jimmy the more the story progresses. Therefore, his decision to walk away at the end bookmarks a new beginning to his life with Lily and the end of his professional hitman career.
Does Jimmy Kill Humphries? Does He Get Closure on His Brother’s Death?
Near the end, Jimmy corners the last man on his list, Alexander Jerrod, a man who found salvation in God’s word after his part in the double-crossing operation. After a lucid and frank conversation with Jerrod, Jimmy decides to let the man go and instead wonders if his revenge mission is worth it. While he ponders over his actions, Killer and Humphries arrive to corner him, with the latter shooting him in the back of his head in an exact recreation of how he took him down years ago. There, the truth finally emerges about Humphries’ part in the whole plot. Fortunately, Jimmy is saved by the metal plate in the back of his head. Subsequently, he wakes up and hunts down Humphries, killing him and ending the cycle of revenge for good.
After killing Humphries, one loose end still remains—Marina. Although Gary’s former girlfriend did not directly kill him, she played a massive part in his downfall. It seems prudent that Jimmy should go and hunt her down or find out her reasons for giving up his brother’s secrets to the corrupt officer. Still, he decides to do nothing of the kind. In some ways, with Humphries’ death, the protagonist senses an end to the chaos of the whole affair that tarnished his life and traumatized him for years. Thus, there is a definite change in Jimmy’s mindset at this point, which is mostly likely a result of the conversation he had with Jerrod. Although he has been hell-bent on revenge, he also learns that sometimes people deserve a second chance and an opportunity to lead their lives without punishment awaiting them everywhere.
Additionally, as Detective Humphries was the head of the hydra, he has essentially gotten rid of the person most responsible for the crime. Any further violence or action would be overkill on his part and unnecessary. Given the amount of blood on his hands and the destructive thoughts dictating every facet of his life, he has to begin a new journey to atone for his sins. Therefore, the final moments show Jimmy scattering his brother’s ashes to the sea before entering the car and driving away towards the horizon. It ends on a hopeful note, with Jimmy potentially taking up Jerrod’s advice and finding his own salvation to veer away from a path of darkness. While the authorities may make it difficult for him, the protagonist can escape them and lay low long enough to forge a new identity free from his past mistakes.
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