Fast Five (dir. Justin Lin, 2011)
I have seen six of these movies, and, when living with any characters for that long, you do develop a strange affection for them. I still can’t necessarily suss out why some of these characters are important in the grand scheme of the Fast & Furious universe, but we now seem to have a core of characters, and it’s refreshing. Fast Five was the first film in the series that felt like the series was finally ramping up into what it always wanted to be: A team of badass multi-culti supersleuths taking down dangerous criminals with their car racing powers. This sounds like a premise for a Hanna-Barbera cartoon from the 1970s. This is no bad thing.
The premise: At the end of 4 Fast 4 Furious, Dom (Diesel) was arrested for being a thief, even though he helped O’Connor (Walker) catch a dangerous drug dealer. The film ended with Dom being busted out of the prison bus by Walker, not a turncoat, and some other racing buddies. Fast Five begins with the entire team on the lam in Brazil. A resourceful supercop named Hobbs (Johnson) has managed to track Dom down. Meanwhile, Dom and O’Connor run afoul of a Brazilian crime lord (Joaquim de Almeida). Evidently fast driving can stop him somehow, so Dom enlists O’Connor, his sister, Tyrese, Kang, and everyone else to aid him.
Look, the story doesn’t matter. It’s clearer than in 4 Fast, but more incidental. Needless to say, the bad guy is up to no good, and our Fast heroes are essentially The A-Team. But with souped-up super cars rather than a boring black van.
The film ends with an awesome chase through the streets of Rio with Dom and O’Connor dragging an entire bank vault behind their cars on giant cables. As they swing around corners together, the giant vault swings after them, smashing into cars and store fronts and wrecking everything in sight. It’s an awesome scene and perhaps a highlight of the entire series.
Fast Five is a clarion call for the series, and a breath of fresh air in the current action movie climate which tends to skew more sci-fi and fantastical. Here is a film that gets its thrills from real car stunts, real driving, real awesomeness. I love it. I love it a lot.
The next film isn’t as good, but it’s keeping the spirit alive.
