The briefly-jailed and still unruffled ex-con Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) flees to sweeping shots of Rio de Janeiro in time to find his pregnant sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) and ex-cop-turned-buddy Brian (Paul Walker) involved in a heist that runs them afoul of Rio’s current godfather (Joaquim de Almeida). On top of this, FBI bulldog Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) is on their trail. To spark up the jumble, Brian and Dom invite almost all essential cronies from the last four Fast & Furious films and hatch a plan to rip the white-collar mob boss off $100 million. In Fast & Furious 5, payback is sweeter when you leave them penniless and dead.
Action films have had it tough for a while now; franchises have it tougher — from finding the right title to dutifully sticking to the original idea, to sifting the mess left by the last one, to maybe adding a menacing, charismatic villain to the mix. All this and the haunting question of attracting the female set to a hot, hard and testosterone-driven guy flick. Fast 5, running in theatres worldwide, has all this down pat.
The title is stripped to bare essentials; the obligation of vrooming car-action is kept as the big bookend sequences. Bikini-clad sweaty women promenading their assets — plenteous in Rio de Janeiro where the film is set — are restricted to two, small, chicly-executed scenes (mainly to maintain the PG-13 rating). Instead of focusing on a big bad charismatic villain (de Almeida stereotyped as a white-collar Rio mob boss), we have Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Vin Diesel beating the tar out of each other and the production design. For the ladies, Fast 5 slides in binding family ties and a pregnancy subplot in the background.
It’s all good, clean fun right up to the post-end clip where Hobbs gets a starring ticket in Fast 6.
Justin Lin, the series’ consistent director (after the abysmal 2 Fast 2 Furious) and writer Chris Morgan shuttle through prerequisites without putting up a fight. Their alternative is to make everything unpretentious, but never artless.
As Dom, Diesel shifts between grunts and smiles and the occasional burdened expression that explain he’s still Five’s stanched pillar; his only shake down is when he collides head-on with “The Rock”, who Walker explains as “old testament” and a “blood, bullets, wrath of god” type guy. With the two alphas in place, the rest are shifted down as specialists and comedy relief.
Walker and Brewster, active more in the first act, are relaxed to comfy, almost off-screen positions, in the second act the six gung-ho auxiliary characters kick in: Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Tyrese Gibson, Sung Kang, Tego Calderón, Don Omar and former Miss Israel, Gal Gadot, whose finger-print getting method gets a seal of approval from men of all ages.
Released by Universal, Fast 5 is rated PG-13. Pumped-up bodies crash into each other, cars go vroom and guns go boom as the B-roll camera nearly misses Christ of the Andes every time it flies over Rio.
Second opinion
There’s a new heart beating in Fast 5 and it comes from multiple characters of past films of the Fast and Furious franchise with Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and Jordana Brewster. This new heart is composed of another element: simpler, clearer storytelling, and one that’s defined by formulaic rules of screenwriting. Even when Fast 5 is melodramatic or preposterous, the action never hits the speed breaker.
Director Justin Lin (Tokyo Drift, Fast and Furious) keeps it straight and crisp, and in the trademark way of the franchise the action is mostly physical, fast and furious, but can still be seen and understood. Even the returning cast has screen time, which gives a comedic and human edge to Dom’s team.
However, not every action is in the streets or cars. In one growl-fest, Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson engage in a verbal chew-down alpha-contest, and in another they tear down walls in a no-holds-barred fist cuff. As an action film, the tremendous racing sequences, especially the climactic heist chase, is the cake and their brawling is the icing. Downright, high-octane fun. — Farheen Jawaid