Friday night I went to my local theatre and eagerly handed over my $9.25 for the latest installment of the "Fast and Furious" franchise Fast 5. I was not alone as the movie would go on to make $83.6 million over its opening weekend, the highest April movie opening ever and the highest ever for a films fifth installment beating the likes of Star Wars and Harry Potter's fifth films. The parking lot at the local movie-plex was packed with Honda CRX's, low riding Toyota's and Acura's as I wheeled my Pontiac G5 and the theatre was just as crowded. The previews allowed me to get acclimated to the IMAX viewing experience and before long I was ready for the first scene. Going to the movies especially on opening night is not something I do regularly, but I was confident that the Fast franchise would stick to what made the franchise a success and like a good restaurant or NBA official all you can ask for in a movie franchise is consistency. I enjoyed all of the previous four installments some more than others, loved the first, second and fourth while I lost a little interest in Tokyo Drift with Vin Diesel appearing in only the last scene while Bow Wow played a prominent role, and sometimes you just need a mindless action movie in the same way that sometimes I just want to eat a Sheetz hot dog or a Beef and Cheddar from Arby's. (Spoiler Alert, if you are planning to see the movie and like Frank Costanza you want to go in fresh stop reading as part of my review will reveal "plot" details).
I loved that the first scene opened right where the Fast 4 ended with Dom (Vin Diesel) being transported by bus to a maximum security prison in the desert while his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) and Brian (Paul Walker), who is still an FBI agent at this point, follow closely in street racing cars. Mia and Brian manage to flip the bus while we in the audience are forced to put out of our mind the more likely conclusion of the bus running over these plastic cars like it would run over a speed bump. The bus rolls multiple times and the movie cuts to a news report where we learn that no one was seriously injured in the accident (first audience wide laugh erupts in the theatre), but that Dom has escaped. You have to figure that the actors, writers, and director are in on the joke as well, but it is important to make the point that though these three are all now fugitives from the law that they aren't bad people. This is the same thing the Steelers organization did after last summer when they made a point to show how much Ben gave in the community and how the Lakers highlighted Kobe's off the court involvement with LA's children hospital after his adventures in Colorado. Next, Mia and Brian show up in the slums of Brazil looking haggard, hungry, and low on options, sort of like Ronaldo after his last World Cup comeback ended. They go to Vince's house, one of the original members of Dom's gang from Fast 1, we aren't sure what to make of him since he and Brian have a long and complicated past kind of like Hawks fans and Joe Johnson. Vince tells Mia and Brian that he has an easy job for them and Dom (didn't Riley tell Spoelstra the same thing?), a smash and grab job of a couple of cars being transported by train. This leads to one of the best action scenes in recent memory as Mia, Brian, and Dom join with a crew (who they are going to eventually double cross) that pulls a truck next to a train, using a welding torch they open the train car and extract three DEA seized cars from the train. After the DEA agents realize the ongoing robbery they try to stop it and are eventually shot by other members of the Dom, Brian, and Mia's crew (again an important distinction that Dom, Brain, and Mia might be on the other side of the law, but they are not unlikeable, the same fine line the Blazers tried to walk for years in the late 90's). Brian is left clutching the side of the train while Dom tries to pull one of the stolen cars beside him while the train is heading for a bridge overpass, Brian manages to jump on to the back of Dom's car before the bridge, but the car heads over a 200 foot cliff and both guys have to jump out of the car as they splash in the water like they jumped off a diving board into a pool (second audience wide eruption of laughter). Maybe a bit unrealistic, but not as unrealistic as Harrison Ford surviving a standing broad jump into a damn in "The Fugitive" or Arnold jumping from a plane into a marsh in "Commando". Mia gets away with her part of the double cross as the bad guys wait for Dom and Brian outside of the water and tie them up and take them to a warehouse. They quickly break free from their chains and take out the five guys with guns guarding them and meet back up with Mia at Vince's place. Dom, Brian, and Mia let Vince know their displeasure with his job as this was more than a smash and grab job and now they have DEA blood on their hands. They do have the stolen cars and now they must find out what is so important with these cars that the DEA seized them. Low and behold there is a micro chip in one of the cars that shows all the safe houses where the biggest drug lord in Brazil hides his money. This could be the last big job this crew on the run from the law needs to set them up for life, at this point the audience knows that Mia is pregnant, but Brian and Dom are still in the dark.
They will need a big crew, "Ocean's Eleven" style, for this job and since this is the 5th installment of the franchise they know just the people to call. Most notably the get Tej (Ludacris who looks like his back in his "Chicken and Beer" 'album release prime), Roman (Tyrese Gibson who is very good in the role of crew funny guy), Han (Sung Kang who was prominent in Tokyo Drift and was also in another great action thriller "Live Free or Die Hard"), and Gisele Harabo (Gael Gadot who was Braga's liaison in Fast 4 and came under the all encompassing Dom curse in that installment). They all think the plan is crazy and a sure death sentence, but they are all persuaded to stay by an $11 million payday and the driven leadership of Dom (something never said of Henrik Sedin or Jay Cutler's leadership styles). At this point The Rock is introduced as the commanding officer of an elite unit that has been deployed to find Dom, Brian, and Mia and bring them to justice and to answer for the DEA killings. The Rock exits a transport plane in his first scene and looks like he is fresh off a Manny Ramirez HGH cycle with a two sizes too small Under Armor shirt, camo pants and more Coco butter than a Hawaiian Tropic photo shoot. When the rest of Dom's crew finds out he is hunting them Brian gives him the ultimate compliment by saying "He is the guy the FBI hires when they need to bring someone in" (Spurs coach Greg Popovich probably said something similar to Zack Randolph after their recent playoff series). The Rock chooses a rookie Brazilian cop, Elena Neves, who is easy on the eyes (a Fast franchise requirement) as his team's translator under the premise that she is a rookie whose husband was killed in duty and therefore will not be corruptible.
The plot moves along with the crew planning their Ocean's Eleven like heist and the cat and mouse game between The Rock's crew and Dom's crew. One notable scene occurs after Brian finds out that Mia is pregnant and Paul Walker and Vin Diesel are alone in an emotionally epic scene together talking about memories and the lack of memories of their respective fathers. Let's just say this scene is closer to the Stallone/Lundgren interactions in "Rocky 4" than DeNiro/Pacino in "Heat" and was as uncomfortable as watching the Collins brothers play one on one or a Kordell Stewart/Donovan McNabb accuracy contest. Eventually The Rock locates Dom's crew's warehouse and we get our much anticipated Rock vs. Diesel fight which was as entertaining as a Rock/Triple H battle for the Heavyweight title. The fight scene was very entertaining thanks to the "Bourne Ultimatum" like cinematography and the fact that Vin Diesel looked like Jason Terry standing next to Andrew Bynum. Dom had a chance to hit The Rock with a wrench and kill him, but following the theme of the movie he thought better of it and surrendered along with Brian and Mia. As The Rock and his crew take Dom, Brian, and Mia through the streets of Rio to the airport they are ambushed and The Rock's crew is killed, the Brazilian cop/translator Elena Neves releases Dom, Brian, and Mia from their handcuffs and they help fend off the ambush and Dom saves the injured Rock's life by pulling him to the car. When The Rock realizes that the people who ambushed him and killed his crew are the same drug gang that Dom and his crew are trying to rob they join up like Lebron and Wade.
At this point all the drug lord's money has been moved into a safe in the Brazilian police station/jail and the robbery becomes that much more difficult. The Rock and his only surviving crew member Elena use their tank like transport vehicle to smash through the walls of the police station as Dom and Brian follow in their cars and hook the safe up to chains on their respective cars and pull the safe in tandem out of the police station. In what should go down as one of the great action movie scenes of all time the next twenty minutes of the movie revolve around Dom and Brian pulling a safe on chains around the city of Rio (destroying most of it in the process) as corrupt cops, drug crews try to stop and/or kill them with Dom's crew and The Rock running interference. The play out to this scene and how Dom's crew gets the money out of the safe while everyone is chasing them is the one plot point I will leave out and let you discover when you watch the movie. In the second to last scene The Rock tells Dom and Brian that they have a 24 hour head start, but that he will continue chasing them, because he always get his man. Dom grins and ensures The Rock this is the last time they will see each other and the final scene is Dom and the Brazilian translator cop Elena together (these two getting together is unexplained but it follows the franchises theme of every woman who comes in contact with Dom falling in love with him which is also what happened to every girl who met Dylan on 90210) and visiting Brian and a very pregnant Mia on the beach of a secluded island. Brian challenges Dom to one last race to settle a franchise long debate about who is the better wheel man. Isn't it all about who has the better car, I might think I am better at cutting my grass than my 70 year old neighbor, but as long as he has a John Deere tractor and I have a push mower he is going to finish in half the time. My point being isn't it all about the machine and nothing about the personal skill of the operator?
Suffice it to say after a lot of high fiving we in the audience were glued to our seats as the credits rolled at the end of the movie and thankfully we were as a final scene during the credits showed US Customs Agent Monica Fuentes (Eva Mendes) from Fast 2 showing The Rock a surveillance picture of Dom's presumed dead girlfriend Leticia Ortiz (Michelle Rodriquez) who is a suspect in a recent military convoy hijacking in Berlin. Let's just say cheers erupted as everyone got a glimpse of the first scene of Fast 6 which will hopefully be released next summer.
Fast Five lived up to the lofty standards of the first four movies and I think it was the best of the bunch, the action scenes were second to none while the stunt work and cinematography was jaw dropping. After seeing both this movie and the latest Batman on IMAX it was no contest that Fast 5 benefitted more from the technology. I talked about the franchise prospering due to consistency of the movies and the same can be said about the actors, Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, The Rock, and even Ludacris and Tyrese know their roles and play them well. You don't see Paul Walker and Vin Diesel (anymore) trying to do comedies or dramas or hosting award shows and open mic nights. They are good at what they do and they leave the public intrigued and wanting more. They remind me of Pens center Jordan Staal who is an excellent 3rd line center and penalty killer who is badly miscast as a top line center who is counted on to deliver points consistently and becomes exposed when injuries force him into this role. The writers and director also know their audience and they would have been more than pleased to see the reaction their movie got from a packed theatre outside of Harrisburg on opening night where 95% of the audience was in the marketers desired demographic of 18-39.
As for Fast 6 I can't wait and since the characters struck it rich in this installment the next will we have to be about more than money, but they won't be a problem with the after credits scene. At this rate I think they can easily push the franchise to double digits and challenge Phil Jackson's ring total.
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