Faster Director George Tillman Jr. on Why His Movie Has No CGI

Today (November 24) Dwayne Johnson will return to the action genre with his latest film Faster. The movie centers on a newly released prisoner who’s hellbent on tracking down and executing the men responsible for his brother’s death. There are a lot of shoot outs and car chases and in a rare feat in modern day cinema, there’s not CGI! All the action is real. This was something that director George Tillman Jr. was adamant about doing. Faster has a low-key, late sixties, early seventies vibe to it and it works in the film’s favor because it’s such a departure from the norm.

I recently spoke one on one with Tillman about the film and he revealed that stylistically the “no CGI” rule was something that he and the cast fully wanted…

These days CGI has become one of the standards in film no matter the genre. Digital effects are almost used on everything but Tillman strayed away from them for Faster. He wanted to do something different.

George Tillman Jr: There are a lot of films that do it. It looks good but something doesn’t feel authentic. Part of the reason [why we did it] was we didn’t have a lot of money to do all the stuff that those guys had. And stylistically talking to Billy Bob and Dwayne, we were just like, ‘let’s go for it.’ ‘Let’s do it.’ I think it helps it feel more real and I think the audience can appreciate it a little bit more. So that was our goal going into the movie.

He wants the audience to feel a genuine threat while watching the action scenes in the film. Somehow if CGI was used that feeling wouldn’t necessarily be there. And if it was, it wouldn’t be as heightened.

George Tillman Jr: We used no digital effects. No digital — CGI. No car spinning around that’s computerized. These are the real cars, with the real guys doing it. I think it makes it feel real like the films of the 70s. It makes you feel like its actually happening. That’s what we tried to do. It makes it feel fresher at the same time because you don’t really get a chance to see it done by real people anymore.

With the absence of all the razzle dazzle and special effects the movie seems to be a bare bones revenge story. This was something that Tillman was aware of and wanted from the start. He channeled the classic Sergio Leone film The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly to make his modernized tale of three men on different missions that eventually intersect.

George Tillman Jr: That’s what it was meant to be to a certain degree because of its structure: Driver, Cop, Killer. Three lives that all intersect, set pieces, the landscape, Lancaster, Palmdale, the mountains, desert. The same kind of vibe. I love that. Sergio Leone did all those films, the guy with no name, the characters with no names, the whole showdown in this film. This was stuff that I loved and these were some of the things in some of the films that we watched during pre-production.

If you’re looking for something rare, unique and entertaining Faster seems like the right ticket for you this holiday weekend. The film is now playing everywhere. Check out the trailer…

Do you plan on seeing Faster this weekend?