Billy Bob Thornton will go up against Dwayne Johnson in the action thriller, Faster – a movie that became a lot more intriguing today, with the release of further plot details.

In an act of ultra-stylisation that recalls the stark, pared-down style of Walter Hill’s The Driver, Johnson will play a character called, simply, Driver, who’s out to avenge the murder of his brother.

Thornton will play a cop called, if you haven’t already guessed, Cop, who makes it his business to take Driver down and bring him in etc. etc.

A third pivotal character – Killer, a hitman hunting down Driver – has yet to be cast.

Of course, this could be a noir-ish conceit too far, but we rather like the metaphorical balls on display here. Certainly, all the signs are that Faster aims to move like a rocket, with no time for little things like characterisation and back story. Whether it will have an existential twinge, like Hill’s classic Ryan O'Neal/Bruce Dern two-hander, remains to be seen, but let’s hope that director George Tillman Jr. can at least deliver on the action front.

Joe and Tony Gayton penned the script for the movie, which will start filming next year.