 | | Fast 5 ***
| Year: | 2011 | | Director: | Justin Lin | | Rating: | 12A | | Length: | 130 Min. |
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Wrestling legend Dwayne Johnson joins the crew for this new adventure, playing the ruthless federal agent Luke Hobbs, now on the trail of ex-cop Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) and ex-con Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel). Brian has broken Dom out of prison, and joined him as they race across borders in an effort to avoid capture. Cornered in Brazil, the fugitive racers and their allies know that they need to pull off one last job if they are ever to gain their freedom, both from the law and the criminal syndicate they have angered. But with a corrupt businessman determined to see them dead, and a relentless agent hot on their tail, the odds are not in their favour! Hitting the gas has never been more vital than in this turbo-charged action thriller. My sentiments about the fifth outing for the Fast and Furious team are basically the same as
part four. It’s silly macho nonsense that if you approach in the right frame of mind will be thoroughly entertaining. There is more to say about this ultimately curious slice of petrol-head fun though.
The meat and potatoes of the film is the pure action and it is very fast and much more furious than ever before. Justin Lin has now directed the last three instalments and has improved with each one to be a very effective action director. He’s no Paul Greengrass and definitely no Kathryn Bigelow, but he is also much better than Michael Bay. He never loses sight of his characters in the middle of the metal crunching action, which is, even in this film, essential. The staging of each major sequence gets more audacious and ridiculous (who needs physics?), that it does get tired by the end, but he also has a variety of scenes outside of the cars. A foot chase through a Rio slum and an ambush reminiscent of
Clear And Present Danger (nice having Joaquim de Almeida play the villain in both) stand out. Yes, I did just compare
Fast 5 to a political thriller, but Phillip Noyce’s film was a stepping stone in action cinema, so it’s valid. So there.
I did find a basic lack of pure car chase action odd. There’s one street race and we don’t even see the actual race! Ok, so the outcome was predictable and the cute edit recognises that so pacing is unaffected in an already over-long film, but this is The Fast and The Furious, for goodness sake! The first (train) and last (vault) major set-pieces are fantastic, but it was built on car porn and there isn’t quite enough. Apparently,
Fast 5 was born from an abandoned sequel to the
Italian Job remake, which explains it, and the middle act at least is a pure heist film. F&F was always about heists, but they were never structured like an Ocean’s Eleven film before, right down to the plans, test runs and sleight of hand reveals.
It’s a great excuse for Dom (Vin Diesel) and Brian (Paul Walker), along with Mia (Jordana Brewster) to pull in a few of their chums from previous outings (like Tyrese Gibson as Roman from
2 Fast 2 Furious) and the banter between them makes for the best dialogue of all the films. It’s great fun. Definitely more
Ocean’s Eleven, but this weird, light Rat Pack style charm sits uneasy with the franchises basic appeal. When we do get the testosterone fuelled boobs, cars and ignorant bruisers knocking hell out of one another, it feels a bit shoe-horned in. They also bring back Vince (Matt Schulze) from the original film and with him, that sense of a family that was the core of the story, but he just doesn’t fit in properly any more.
We also get two villains and they feel like separate films. Almeida handles the typical heist film business man target, while Dwayne Johnson leads a blood and bullets tactical strike team chasing down Dom and Brian and he could have fitted anywhere in the franchise. As a result, Johnson brings his easy charm to the best character, a hulk of a man who probably gargles petrol every morning, but he has some terrible lines that will make you laugh out loud!
At least it feels fresh though and while the Fast And Furious films have always been dismissed as fun junk, Vin Diesel and Paul Walker have managed to create characters you actually care about, with Jordana Brewster bringing out their best. They are not Expendables, you could say. This is the best film of the series since the first one and if you like this kind of stuff, you’re going to love every second of it. I actually hope this becomes a six-speed box-set and they bring back The Rock!
