Fast Five
If you had told me back in 2001 that I would watch all five movies in this crime action franchise and enjoy them, I would have told you that you were crazy. When I saw “The Fast and the Furious” ten summers ago, it didn’t really work for me; the action and eye candy were good, but the film itself left me hollow. Watching the first film again, prior to 2009’s “Fast and Furious,” provided more appreciation for that 2001 smash, and catching up with the franchise via John Singleton’s “2 Fast 2 Furious” and Justin Lin’s “Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” (still the best film in the series), the thrills are still empty, but the characters are written efficiently enough to provide a thread of personal interest in the story.
“Fast Five” begins with the exciting prison break of Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) as he is being transferred by bus to a federal prison. Immediately we are reintroduced to Dom’s sister, Mia (Jordana Brewster), and her boyfriend, Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker), a former federal agent who has been running cars with Dom for a while now. They make their way down to Rio de Janerio where another former associate of Dom’s, Vince, has a deal lined up. That deal, a daring heist of three cars being transported by train, sets the rest of the movie up as Dom & Co. are now hunted by the FBI as well as a Brazilian crime lord (Reyes, played by Joaquim de Almeida) with the entire city of Rio in his pocket.
There’s a lot more to this story, which runs too long at 130 minutes, and gets too convoluted. Still, the point of the “Fast” films isn’t the crime drama but the action sequences that drama sets up, and Lin (who has directed the franchise since “Tokyo Drift”) is clicking on all cylinders with set pieces that are masterpieces of visual effects and old school stunt work. Even a playful street race between Dom, Brian, and their cohorts, Roman (Tyrese Gibson from “2 Fast 2 Furious”) and Han (Sung Kang from “Tokyo Drift”), after they lift some cars for their heist at the end of the film has an energy and level of risk that equals the bigger scenes Lin stages. And that epic brawl between Dom and Hobbs, the fed played by Dwayne Johnson? Well worth the hype; those two really wreck up the place… literally.
Still, action can only take a film so far. What surprises me is how engaged I’ve become with these characters. The actors aren’t great talents, but they wear these roles like a reliable pair of walking shoes– you don’t want to take them off. And if the credit cookie scene in this film is to be believed, I wouldn’t doubt it if we get a sixth trip around the block with these characters. I bet not even the producers could have predicted that back in 2001.
