Movie Review: Fast Five

Fast Five, the fifth installment of the Fast & Furious franchise picks up right where the last one ended (okay, so just in case you need to be reminded of exactly where the last one left off), with Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) getting liberated from his prison bus by Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) and Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster) although we never actually see Dom escape. Cut to Rio de Janeiro where our anti-heroes plan on laying low for, about two seconds, before they’re caught up in a good-old-fashioned train robbery. The scheme is ingenious and the action is thrilling as the group tries to steal spectacular cars from a moving train. Of course, things don’t go quite as planned and our main characters find themselves in even worse trouble than when the movie started.

Enter The Rock, oh, um, excuse me, I mean Dwayne Johnson as Hobbs, whose squad of commandos fly down to Rio to capture the fugitives. Then an unexpected thing happens. A car chase movie morphs into a bank heist movie. Well, it’s not exactly a bank, but a vault holding millions of dollars that belong to a crime lord (so, you see, stealing from bad guys actually makes the bad guys good guys). At this point, you could’ve called the movie The Italian Job II: The Rio Job. Unfortunately, there’s a long period of non-action as a team (comprised of characters from previous installments of the franchise) is assembled to pull off the heist. When Dom and Brian decide they need some fast cars for the job they show up at a street racing event, complete with awesome cars and beautiful women in incredibly short shorts.

Dom puts up his 1970 Charger against a Porsche. “Alright, here we go! Now we’re gonna see some car chases!” I thought. Then…quick cut…and we’re back at the hideout with the Porsche! What? Where’s the street race? Is a reel missing? Okay, the audience is denied a race and the inaction continues. Be patient. Eventually, your patience pays off. Hobbs and Toretto are on opposite sides of the law, right? You expect a confrontation, right?  When Diesel and Johnson finally square off against each other that fight alone is worth the price of admission. Heck, I would’ve paid to see this bout on Pay-Per-View. But there’s more to come!

There’s still a heist to pull off. And, well, the ludicrous yet entertaining plan defies physics in eye-rolling fashion. Can two modern Dodge Chargers, using steel cables attached to a large vault, not only pull it out of a building, but then proceed to elude the corrupt police department during a high speed chase? That’s a question best left answered by The Mythbusters. For now, suspend your disbelief and enjoy the ride. Fast Five forgoes the adrenalin rush of high speed racing scenes made popular in the previous films, and instead revels in a lengthy scene of utter mayhem and destruction, as the Chargers drag the vault down the busy city streets of Rio, destroying everything in their path.

As incredibly unbelievable as this and other scenes in the movie are, Fast Five is enormously entertaining. The unabashed destruction conjured up memories of classic films like the original Gone in 60 Seconds and The Blues Brothers. It seemed like everyone, and I mean everyone, the actors, the filmmakers, the stunt people and yes, the audience, were having an absolute blast. At times the crowd in my movie theater cheered, reminding me of why it can be so very special to see a movie like this in a theater with a live audience. There are moments throughout the film that I won’t ruin by describing here, only to say that at various times I had goose bumps while uttering “Wow.” And I, for one, am already looking forward to the next installment. How do I know there will be another chapter? Well, don’t leave the theater too early, or you’ll miss the “cliffhanger” that will leave you smiling.

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