Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
4/30/11
For
the longest time, sequels were all about diminishing returns: keep
going back to the same well over and over with fewer and fewer of the original
creative people and less and less of the original spark. But somewhere
along the way, something changed. Maybe the evolving state of all
narrative media away from the self-contained and toward the serialized
made them seem like a more legitimate endeavor. Or perhaps the simple
fact that sequels are such a large part of Hollywood's output motivated
everyone working in the business to take them a little more seriously.
But either way, we're looking now at franchises that build an ever-deepening
universe and work hard each time at perfecting what they're doing rather
than just recycling it. Granted, that's best-case, but can you imagine
twenty years ago seeing a franchise about lovable crooks who drive really
fast (or any franchise, for that matter) producing its most confident,
exciting and generally best entry on the fifth try? Fast Five
continues the, er, saga that began with 2001's surprise hit The Fast
and the Furious by assembling an all-star team of actors from previous
installments to stage a nifty Rio-set heist movie that is easily the finest
of the series. Director Justin Lin, in his third go-round, keeps
upping the ante on the action spectacle and his cast has gotten really
comfortable with both their roles and each other, leading to a camaraderie
that goes a long way to compensate for their dramatic limitations.
It's hard to imagine what a fan might be expecting from Fast Five
that they won't get, right down to the introduction of a splendid new adversary
for the gang in the person of Dwayne Johnson. It's unlikely to win
any new converts to the Furious universe, but it's a high octane
good time that's a perfect way to start the summer movie season.
On
the run after pulling off the spectacular prison breakout that ended Fast
& Furious (and, the movie is very clear, killed no one on that
prison bus despite all visual indications that it killed everyone), Brian
O'Conner (Paul Walker, veteran of FF 1,2 & 4) and Mia Toretto (Jordana
Brewster, 1 & 4) take a job suggested by their former cohort Vince
(Matt Schulze, 1) to help steal a bunch of DEA-seized cars from a speeding
train. The job goes horribly awry, requiring Mia's brother Dominic
(Vin Diesel, 1 & 4, with a cameo in 3) to save Brian while she speeds
away in a car of great significance to crime lord Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida),
who runs everything illegal in Rio. Three DEA agents are gunned down
during the botched heist and our heroes are blamed, bringing Hobbs (Dwayne
Johnson) and his fugitive retrieval team to town with the intention of
bringing down the suspects with extreme prejudice. He requests rookie
Elena (Elsa Pataky) to assist him, confident that she's the only honest
cop in town. Dom, Brian and Mia find the important part of that car:
a microchip containing every piece of information about Reyes' business.
When Mia tells Brian she's pregnant, Dom decides it's time for all of them
to get out of their criminal lifestyle, which means One Last Job, stealing
a hundred million dollars in dirty money from the man who framed them.
They're gonna need a team, and luckily they've got a whole franchise worth
of supporting players to choose from. Cue Roman (Tyrese Gibson, 2),
Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, 2), Han (Sung Kang, 3 & 4), Gisele (Gal
Gadot, 4) and brothers Leo (Tego Calderon, 4) and Santos (Don Omar, 4).
Together, they get the fast cars and computer tech they'll need to get
Reyes to put all his money in the same place, and he's paid enough bribes
to get himself one REALLY secure spot: a private vault in the evidence
room of the Rio Police Department.
The
Furious franchise was running on fumes when Lin and writer Chris
Morgan assembled a new cast for the dreadful Fast & the Furious
3: Tokyo Drift. But from the moment Diesel closed that
movie with a cameo, the original stars have returned with a vengeance and
the creative team that couldn't do anything right their first time out
has gotten a firmer and firmer grasp of what makes these movies run.
It doesn't hurt that by Fast Five, they seem to have access to unlimited
funds: the opening and climactic action sequences would be stunning
by James Bond's standards, let alone a series that started out as a B-movie
afterthought. Sure, Lin plays as fast and loose with the laws of
physics as his characters do with the speed limit, but he's always able
to keep you in the moment, the most important thing when people are falling
hundreds of feet into the water and popping up unharmed. In fact,
it's a shame the late, great Stephen J. Cannell didn't live to see Fast
Five, because its ratio of carnage (sky-high) to fatalities (pretty
low, and ALL bad guys) would make The A-Team proud. It's amazing
how many buildings and vehicles are destroyed during the climax while innocent
civilians are always a step ahead of that multi-ton safe Dom and Brian
are dragging behind their cars as all of Corrupt Rio chases them (remember,
I said corrupt Rio: Mia makes it clear that only dirty cops
are in pursuit, so, you know, they get what they have coming). And
you don't want to mess with Hobbs' team, which pulls automatic weapons
and blasts everything that moves every time they hear a twig snap.
Of course, they too never so much as scratch anyone who isn't evil.
The
action is loads of fun, but the same has been true pretty much from the
series' beginning. Two things make Fast Five stand out.
First is the addition of Johnson: for a franchise about criminals
we're supposed to love, there's never before been a particularly strong
law enforcement antagonist to make their lives miserable. Hobbs more
than does the job; he's like The Fugitive's Girard on, uh, steroids
(not implying anything, Dwayne, but WOW those are some muscles...), barking
orders, refusing to listen to logic and generally tearing Rio apart like
a bull in a China shop. I particularly loved a moment when Elena
looks through the heroes' file, puzzled about why they're so virtuous when
they're supposed to be criminals. “This doesn't make any sense,”
she says, leading Hobbs to offer “You know what makes sense?”, grab the
file and toss it across the room. No subtleties to this guy!
Predictably, he and Diesel have a delightfully vicious knock-down, drag-out
fight, and even he eventually gets pulled into the story's obsession with
shades of grey.
The
other newfound strength of FF is the clever idea to work the saga's
laundry list of guest stars for all it's worth. Nobody's been in
all five movies, so a whole lot of people have been in and out of Dom and
Brian's lives, and together they don't just make a nice Ocean's Eleven-style
ensemble (Fast Five actually reminded me a lot of The Italian
Job), but it's the rare movie where two crooks call in all their old
associates and we actually know them and their past associations.
Because, as I mentioned previously, this isn't a thespian all-star team,
Five wisely leans on bonding and sentimentality rather than drama
in the group's dynamic. Diesel does have a way with gravitas, just
as Walker is great at convincing us he LOVES to drive fast. Gibson
and Bridges have nice comic interplay, and it's fun to see Kang and Gadot
have an inter-sequel love affair. And I was very happy to see Mia
finally get on board with the family business of crime: Brewster's
never looked lovelier, and she makes a nice Girl Friday for Brian in his
adventures instead of always poo-pooing the fun.
It
can be argued that Fast Five is ten to twenty minutes too long,
but the fat is mostly in the middle. I mentioned the bit with the
safe already, but it bears repeating that it's one hell of an action climax
just as the gambit on the train gets the movie off to a rollicking start.
And I can't stress enough how much fans of the franchise will want to hang
around for a credit cookie that sets up Fast Six, or 6 Fast 6
Furious, or whatever the clever folks at Universal will decide to call
the inevitable sequel. No reason not to continue the Furious
experiment: when a ride's going this fast, who wants to get off? |
