The Big Picture

• Jan de Bont's 1994 film Speed launched the careers of stars like Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, setting the stage for their success.
• Jeff Daniels' character, Harry, brought emotional depth to Speed through his heroic death scene, adding personal stakes to the film.
• The original script of Speed had a twist where Harry was the villain, but the decision for him to die heroically was crucial for the story's impact.

It's hard to believe, but it's been 30 years since Speed came out in theaters. The Jan de Bont film made $350 million worldwide on a $30 million budget, making it one of the most successful films of 1994. It sent the careers of those involved into superstardom. Jan de Bont would go on to direct Twister, Sandra Bullock became one of Hollywood's top leading ladies, and Keanu Reeves showed that he could be an action star. Three decades later, thanks to John Wick, he's one of the biggest action stars on the planet, and you have to wonder if any of that would have been possible without Speed.

One of the film's supporting actors was Jeff Daniels, who, months after Speed, was stealing scenes from Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber. He plays the best friend of Reeves' Jack Traven, a fellow cop named Harry Temple. His death as the result of a bomb built by the villain, Howard Payne (Dennis Hopper), is a heartbreaking scene that gives Jack even more of a reason to stop the bomb-carrying bus and bring vengeance to Payne. In the original script, however, Harry was going to be revealed as the villain, a change which would have altered everything.

Harry’s Death in 'Speed' Is One of the Most Tragic Scenes in Action Movie History

In Speed, Keanu Reeves plays Jack Traven, a down-to-earth but fearless Los Angeles cop. If Speed is "Die Hard on a bus," then Traven is our John McClane, but with a little less snark than Bruce Willis' popular character. In an action movie, every badass cop hero needs a sidekick. Some make it, like McClane's new cop friend in Die Hard, Sgt. Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson), and some don't. Sadly for Harry Temple (Daniels) in Speed, he falls into the latter category. He's the close friend of Traven, as evidenced by their back-and-forth banter, and a brave SWAT Team member himself, but he's not long for the plot of this world.

When madman Howard Payne (Hopper) puts a bomb in an elevator, it's up to Jack and Harry to save the day. We hear a conversation between them with Harry giving Jack a scenario about how to save a hostage when the hostage taker has a gun to her head. He asks Jack what he would do, to which he calmly says, "Shoot the hostage." A few minutes later, when Payne takes Harry hostage, Harry whispers to Jack, "Shoot the hostage," so he does just that, putting a bullet in his friend's leg. It's for not, as Payne escapes, but we see the camaraderie between these friends, and it's revealed that Harry is just as brave as Jack.

Later, when Payne puts a bomb on a bus that will blow up if it goes below fifty miles per hour, it's Jack on the bus trying to save the day, while Harry is trying to track down Payne. Then comes Speed's most heartbreaking scene, where Harry arrives with other SWAT members at a house he thinks Payne is at, only to find out that it's a death trap. Realizing he's about to die, Harry's face becomes one of simple acceptance a second before the bomb goes off. It has been treated as genius acting, but as Jeff Daniels told The Rich Eisen Show in April 2024 (where he revealed that he was actually supposed to die in the elevator scene), he said he simply raised his cheek muscles and dropped them because that's what Roy Scheider said he did when he first saw the shark in Jaws.

The Original Script for 'Speed' Would Have Had Harry As the Villain

Harry is the perfect balance to Jack, and if he had died in act one it wouldn't have meant as much. He needed to be built up to make his death more impactful. However, in the original script for Speed, the film was going to fall into an action movie trope with the twist that the hero's best friend has been the villain all along. In the end, Harry would be revealed to be the big bad, with Payne as his accomplice.

For the twentieth anniversary of Speed in 2014, the film's writer, Graham Yost, spoke with Entertainment Weekly about the original plans. According to Yost, Speed went into production in September 1993, and as of a month before, Jeff Daniels was playing the antagonist. Yost had understandable reasons for making Harry the bad guy, saying:

"I’m never very fond of off-screen bad guys that don’t have a lot of contact with the hero, and I thought it would be interesting if there’s a lot of contact between Harry and Jack and then you find out that Harry’s involved with this whole thing. But man, it takes so much work to make that believable and to make it not feel like just a big switch for the sake of a switch."

The first part makes some sense. Outside of the beginning and end of the Speed, Jack and Payne don't interact outside of phone calls. That disconnect between hero and villain could have left the audience detached, but then something happened that changed everything: Dennis Hopper. Graham Yost called Hopper brilliant and America's favorite psychopath thanks to Apocalypse Now and his role as Frank Booth in Blue Velvet. Yost said that Hopper brought so much to it that Payne didn't need a backstory. The performance alone was enough to sell who Payne was.

'Speed' Works Because Jack Traven Has Something Personal to Fight For

While it is true that Dennis Hopper was phenomenal as the maniacal former cop turned bomber, Harry still could have been left as his accomplice, with Payne the leader and Harry the follower, but that wouldn't have worked. As Yost said, it's a big switch just for the sake of it. That would have been a shocking twist, but not one that made sense, as no clues were left along the path to make Harry look like anything other than a good man. To reveal him as the bad guy just to get jaws to drop would have left the audience feeling lied to. A film can give the audience those twists and shocks, but it has to earn them. Harry as a villain would not have been earned. It also would have made a happy ending impossible. Okay, Jack saved the day and the people on the bus lived, but he was betrayed by his best friend and had to kill him! How can Keanu Reeves kiss Sandra Bullock after that?!

This meant that Harry had to die as a hero. Sure, he could have lived, with an end scene of him and Jack reuniting, but it would have been anticlimactic. Speed is built on everything going wrong. The bus has to stay at fifty miles per hour? Okay, what if there's a gap in the interstate? What if there's a leak in the gas tank? Harry dying is another thing that must go wrong, not just for more suspense, but to add to who Jack Traven is. We get that he's heroic, putting his life on the line to jump on a bus filled with people he doesn't know, but having his best friend be killed by the villain ups the stakes. There's a reason why action movies have the stereotypical line of, "It just got personal." Payne has to make it personal and kill Harry to show how sick he really is, and Jack has to have something to fight for that's about him. It's the same reason why Die Hard works, not just because John McClane is saving a building filled with hostages, but because one of them is his wife. It just got personal.

Speed is filled with iconic action scenes, a chilling villain, and some amazing chemistry between Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. It also has one of the saddest death scenes you'll ever see in an action movie. Harry had to die. In the end, it was for the best. It meant his character couldn't be brought back for Speed 2: Cruise Control.

Speed is available to rent on Amazon in the U.S.

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