Meanwhile, Jeff Daniels locates Dennis Hopper’s house, but unfortunately, the house is a bomb! Jeff goes there and explodes.
Which, like, I hate because I love Jeff. But also, you guys didn’t suspect anything? You didn’t suspect any funny business from the evil bomb mastermind?
When he hears that Jeff is dead, Keanu freaking LOSES IT, and only Sandy B. can bring him back to earth: “I can’t do this by myself!”
YEAH, SHE REALLY CAN’T.
NOR SHOULD SHE BE EXPECTED TO.
Dennis tells the cops they need to drop his money in a garbage can at Pershing Square. The bus is losing fuel and also has a flat tire. They need to get these people off the bus fast. Keanu finally figures out how Dennis knows everything about what they’re doing: he’s hooked into the surveillance camera from the bus! The cops make one of the nearby news vans record thirty seconds of everyone sitting still on the bus and loop it. With Dennis now in the dark, they finally get all the people off the bus except for Keanu and Sandy.
Again, SHE SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN OFF THE BUS AS WELL! SHE IS A CIVILIAN BUS PASSENGER! HE CAN DRIVE! WHAT THE FUCK!
Then the two of them escape by using the hatch in the bottom of the bus as a sort of surfboard and sliding into some cones, while the bus drives into a cargo plane and explodes. Sorry, you didn’t clear the airport? At any point in this whole thing?
They lie on the ground for a moment in a sensual embrace, and then Sandy B. says something that has haunted me for the rest of my life: “Relationships that start under intense circumstances, they never last.”
Is that true?????? What is that based on? I saw this movie when I was way too young to have a concept of what a relationship is actually like, and I definitely filed this away as conventional wisdom. Better not start a relationship under intense circumstances, idiot! They never last! But what qualifies as “intense circumstances”? Is there really a scientifically significant data set on the divorce rate among couples who met when trapped in a bus that would blow up if it went under fifty miles per hour? What if you meet on a roller coaster? Or a haunted elevator? My husband and I met at a very stressful and off-putting party full of cool snobs. Does that count? Are we doomed? I hate it when people just say things!!!
Anyway, Keanu tells Dennis they’re going to make the drop, and Dennis is still watching the looped video like a dumbass so he doesn’t realize that the bus blew up. Apparently, the news (which he is obsessively watching) didn’t report “massive explosion at LAX,” even though you could definitely see that smoke from downtown. Look out the window of your derelict mannequin factory, Dennis! Then he spies a glitch in the loop, realizes the ruse, and heads to Pershing Square to fuck these cops up.
For some reason, the LAPD makes Sandy B. come along with them and sit in an ambulance while they finish arresting Dennis Hopper. What???????? Can’t she go home??? Why on earth does Sandy have to go to the drop? She lives in Venice! It’s not even like downtown is on the way back from LAX!
Of COURSE she instantly hops out of the ambulance and runs into Dennis, who is dressed as a cop and takes her hostage. Good job, cops!
The cops, like a million of them, wait and wait for Dennis to come get the package out of the garbage can, but he never does. Because it turns out he squizzled a hole ’neath the can so he could squeak up and bungle it away with his great twiddly sneak fingers!
They eventually figure out the hole trick and, for some fucking reason, Keanu jumps down in there alone—because who needs these eleven thousand trained snipers (who are literally already there!) when you’re going to confront the murderous and tricky bomb king? Keanu is overconfident, he thinks he has the upper hand on Dennis—“Pop quiz, asshole!”—but, shit, it’s actually Sandy, and she is COVERED in bomb.
“A bomb is made to explode,” says Dennis eccentrically. “That’s its meaning, its purpose. Your life is empty because you spend it trying to stop the bomb from becoming.”
They’re on the subway. Now it’s Speed on a train. Dennis makes Sandy hold this trigger device so he can murder the train driver and check out his loot. He opens the money bag and it squirts purple paint in his face and all over the money. “My money!!!” You can’t buy a Jet Ski with purple money! Everyone knows that!
Keanu and Dennis climb up onto the roof of the subway where they fist-fight. Yo, Dennis, no offense, but you are one million years old. There’s no way you can beat up Keanu! And, indeed, he does not. He gets his head whacked off by a lamp on the subway tunnel roof. THAT’S YOUR PENSION NOW, BITCH!
Even worse for Dennis, Sandy asks Keanu what happened to Dennis and he says, “He lost his head.” A freaking ruthless roast!!!!!
But it’s not over yet! Dennis also broke the train so they cannot stop it, and now the subway track is finished. Keanu knows what to do, though—he’s gonna fly the train like he flew the bus! The thing about Keanu is that he learned stuff from what happened before!
He cranks up the speed, sits down sensually with Sandy to snuggle while they die, and I tell you that train pops right up out of the street like the snake I just found in my peanut brittle! Keanu and Sandy skid to a halt amid the rubble and make out HARD. They are troublingly horny considering how recently they decapitated a dude!
Keanu: I’ve heard relationships based on intense experiences never work.
Sandy: Okay, we’ll have to base it
