Fast Five (2011)

 

Next week brings us the Tenth film in the "Fast and Furious" saga, a series that I never could have imagined when it opened twenty years ago, that would still be going strong. This premise has been used to give us race centered movies, gangster films, spy films and heist films. Scratch Vin Diesel and under the surface you may find another genre struggling to get out. There is always the "Family" drama going on, but this is never going to be "Ordinary People" or "Terms of Endearment". 

In getting ready to see the newest film, I thought it would be fun to go back and finally see all of the other movies. After the first film, I did not return to the series until the sixth movie. Six, Seven, Eight and Nine all have posts on this site already. We burned through the first four at home on video so they did not really demand a commentary from me since the majority of the posts here are based on a theatrical experience [Special Projects Excepted] .  I was looking up times for next week when I noticed the local Cinemark, was playing all of the films in succeeding nights. This timed out well for me so the next three days will have "Fast Five",  "Fast and Furious 6" and "Furious 7" filling this spot. [The 8th and 9th films conflict with some other activities].

This is the entry where Brian has finally shed any connection to law enforcement, and having engineered Dom's escape from prison, finds him and Mia on the lam in South America. So the action for most of this film is centered in Rio de Janeiro. There is substantially less street racing than in the previous films as the movies transition to more heist related story lines. In this case, a car theft from a moving train starts the action, but it is the briefest part of the heist chronology, serving only to introduce us to more complicated thefts down the script. 

The other element that makes this film noteworthy is that this is the movie where Dwayne Johnson becomes part of the universe. The former "Rock" is set to be a fixture for five more of these films but this is the one where it started. Johnson's character Luke Hobbs is a U.S. Agent sent to catch the team, not realizing that they are in the midst of a heist to bring down a bigger fish that the DOJ and State Department would love to bag. In this series, enemies become allies, the dead return to the world of the living, and there is always a double cross or plot twist down the road. Let's just say that when Dawyne Johnson bursts into the movie, the whole film comes to life with a voltage high charge of charisma. 

Eventually there will be a mano a mano showdown, and the two behemoth actors of Johnson and Diesel, will pound on one another for several minutes, but don't expect them to stay permanently at odds for the whole film. Brian's character has already abandoned the LAPD and the DEA and FBI, so it is problematic to have Johnson fully commit to a life of crime as well. The truce that gets made will also set up Johnson's return in the following films. The other agents that Hobbs supervises are basically red shirts that do not go on to have bigger roles in the next caper. 

The car stunts are thrilling but they do get progressively more outlandish with each film after this one. While some of the chases and heist moments are over the top, it does not reach the level of incredulous disbelief until the final sequence when Brian and Dom essentially take a giant safe and turn it into a wrecking ball for the streets of Rio. We are lucky they could not scale  Corcovado , otherwise Christ the Redeemer might have been brought down. 

The term "popcorn movie" perfectly describes these films, which don't have serious content, weighty themes or intellectual depth. They do have great entertainment value and the technical crews and logistics of making a film like this are nothing to sneeze at, unlike the plots. 

Furious 7

I can't say I am a big fan of these films. I saw the first one when it came out and did not return to the series until the previous film, Furious 6. That film had a convoluted plot, brought back a dead character, and pushed the limits of what is believable in a car chase film. Somewhere along the line the gang of criminals featured in these stories became the good guys and they now are working as intelligence operatives because they pissed off the wrong people. I don't buy a second of any of it, but watching it was not annoying in any way and if you are willing to give up any sense of realism, recognize that gravity and physics don't mean anything to making movies any more, than there are worse ways to pass a couple of hours.

Vin Diesel and crew are the continuing attraction. They race cars manically and they take dangerous stunts to the ultimate level. Paul Walker's death in late 2013 delayed this film as they had to create a way to tell the story with bits of his role that had been filmed and plug in spots where there was no footage to work with. I guess you could spend the time playing "spot the CGI double" but that is too much effort for such a weightless film.

To me, the two best things the movie has going for it are reliable veteran film tough guys, Kurt Russell and Jason Statham. "Handsome Rob" is playing the villain here. He is an unstoppable tornado of violence that kills at the drop of a hat. It looks like in the introduction there is already a body count in the dozens and the movie is just starting. I like Statham as a tough guy and he is appropriately menacing in this, however, he is much like one of the vehicles that gets thrown into the story, indestructible because it would slow things down. His character shows up in places that he has no reasonable ability to be and we never see any planning from this bastardized version of James Bond. The most elite military teams in the world can not hit him with a single shot despite the presence of dozens of  high tech weapons. He is a cardboard bad guy made to a boogeyman that is hard to enjoy.

Mr. Russell shows up as a surrogate for Dwayne Johnson's F.B.I. agent. The Rock's character is sidelined early on but he did get a nice fight sequence with Statham and he picks up a big machine gun at the end of the movie and does the best impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger ever. Kurt is cool and smarmy and gets involved in only one real action scene and it is the most believable character arc in the story and it is ridiculous. Just having him swagger in and smile is worth whatever they paid him and I would not be surprised to see his character pop up again if the series gets another film, which given the box office seems inevitable.

In a movie assembled from action pieces, strung together by oversimplified spy tropes, and depending on dialogue written as if it is going to be delivered in a big balloon over the characters head, the cast does what it can to sell the emotional components of the film. There is a nice epilogue with Paul Walker that seems to be a fitting goodby to their co-worker. Now it is time to get back to work, crank out another one and make another couple of billion on the shallowest  movie franchise this side of "Scary Movie" parodies. The cheese is laid on thickly, and it goes down quickly and will not upset your stomach too much.