'Fast & Furious 6' is a deeply romantic movie; in fact the sentiment of love is so great that it transcends categories.
There’s love between man and his machine (aka: shiny paint jobs on cars most of us can only afford to download images of); the love of the adrenaline (aka: there goes the neighbourhood, and the city’s reconstruction budget); the love of a man with his fellow man (aka: bulked-up biceps and unrelenting I-shall-not-look-you-in-the-eye bromance).
There’s also love for the family and the urge to keep it together but most importantly to the antagonist of the movie – the love of money. These last two factors play a big role in Fast 6 (also known as Furious 6). The former of the reasons include the misleadingly deceased Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodrigues), Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel’s) former girl-friend, turned amnesiac female muscle of the villains.
Letty’s actual necessity – as the necessity of any of the parts of the Fast franchise – is questionable. Perhaps it is just as much as the plot device about the villains needing a chip to make a ‘Nightshade’ contraption capable of blacking out the power of an entire region (seriously? Well we experience the use of same device daily, I guess).
This matters not, because for whatever its worth, the Fast movies are beyond unexciting. Mr. Diesel and co. is the reason behind the sale of the tickets; later DVD’s; much later the commercials on television. His recent workmates include Dwayne Johnson as Luke Hobbs and Gina Carano as Riley Hicks – aka the anti Letty.
Seeing Ms. Carano and Ms. Rodrigues duke it out is one of the giddy delights of Fast 6 (they duke it out twice, so the ticket automatically pays for itself twice at one go). However, there’s still more.
In keeping with the style here’s what you get:
Hobbs and Dominic – with their bulging biceps – muscle out frames, trying out plans to knock out the bad guy mercenary (Luke Evans); Brian (Paul Walker), now relegated to a notch-above-extra status, travels back to the US to learn how Letty survived; Roman and Tej (Tyrese Gibson and Chris ‘Ludacris’ Badges) play with machines; Han and Giesel (Sung Kang, Gal Gadot) provide ancillary window dressing. And of course, let’s not forget the usual’: mean hot-rods, skimpily clad women and two road-crushing, people-crunching finales – one involving a tank, the other a runaway airplane on a hundred mile runway.
Fast 5’s climax involved a giant bank vault being through the city, so in keeping with reality is not really a priority here. But by now, you already know that.
Released by Footprint Entertainment and Universal Pictures.
Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges, Sung Kang, Gal Gadot, Luke Evans, Gina Carano, and Elsa Pataky.
“Fast & Furious 6” is Directed by Justin Lin; Written by Chris Morgan (based on characters created by Gary Scott Thompson); Produced by Neil H. Moritz, Clayton Townsend and Vin Diesel; with Cinematography by Stephen F. Windon, Editing by Christian Wagner and Kelly Matsumoto and Music by Lucas Vidal.
The movie is rated PG-13. Words of caution: Never let your children drive this recklessly; they do not have million dollar safety nets, CGI and visual effects, and screenwriters looking out for them.
