Come on, they’re really making another one?
It was everyone’s reaction when they made the third installment in The Fast and the Furious series, so the fact we’re even at a Fast Five is true testament to the staying power of, and our attraction to, fast cars, fast women and Vin Diesel.
And just like we’ve come to expect from the high-octane car racing franchise, Fast Five is dumb, effortless and uninspired, all of which is made OK by those rippling muscles, awesome cars, bodacious babes, blazing guns and super-duper racing scenes.
The film begins with Dom (Diesel) being broken out of jail by his ex-cop friend Brian (Paul Walker) and his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster). To escape the heat, they go to Rio de Janeiro, where the crazy kids once again fall into trouble when another heist results in the deaths of three DEA agents.
A Brazilian crime lord is now after the trio for a computer chip hidden in one of their stolen cars, as is a take-no-prisoners U.S. DSS agent named Hobbs (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) for the deaths of the DEA agents. The three decide they’ve had enough of the life of crime and make plans for one last big job that will put them on Easy Street for good.
The group calls on old friends from the first four installments to help pull off the heist, and from there it basically turns into an Ocean’s Eleven rip-off.
The main defense for Fast Five and movies of its ilk is that it’s just “entertainment,” things don’t have to make sense and it doesn’t even have to be that good if it’s a good time. Sounds like something a Bengals fan would say about the NFL, and frankly it’s a lame excuse to make bad movies.
About 15 minutes in, the overwhelming feeling materializes that any of us probably could have written this. It’s not just the brainless plot, but also the laugh-out-loud dialogue. Why the writers think their tiresome quips and bad-boy banter will be laughed at (for a fifth time) is hard to grasp. Some of the things Johnson says sound straight out of the WWE — unfortunately, he didn’t threaten to kick any “candy-ass.”
At least there are some cool, if of course impractical, action scenes, including stealing cars off a moving train and two muscle cars hauling a massive bank vault through downtown. But none of it is that suspenseful or inspired, and Diesel racing through Rio with that everlasting dim look on his face just doesn’t have the pizzazz of Steve McQueen rampaging through San Francisco or even Jake and Elwood evading the Illinois state troopers.
Nevertheless, Fast Six or whatever it will be called (Six Pack of Fast is the best suggestion I’ve heard so far) is already in production, and a post-credit scene sets up the sixquel nicely.
Can wait.
— Cameron Dunbar is a sophomore studying journalism. Long for the days of the Rock ‘n’ Sock Connection? Reminisce at cd211209@ohiou.edu.
@ThePostCulture
