Fast Five (2011)

Cars drive fast and explode. 

Sweet.


End of review.


Okay, okay.  Once upon a time, I felt very embarrassed to admit that I loved these movies.  They were a true guilty pleasure.  Now, I couldn't care less what anyone else thinks.  I enjoy the "Fast and the Furious" flicks, and that's all there is to it.  Having grown up with the likes of the "Mad Max" trilogy, "The French Connection", "Vanishing Point", "Lethal Weapon", the James Bond series, "Smokey and the Bandit", "Dukes of Hazzard", "Cannonball Run", etc, ad nauseum, I have great fondness for speedy cinematic automobile mayhem.  Yes, I had a collection of Matchbox cars when I was a tyke and I imagined all sorts of crazy stunts and chases, often breaking the laws of physics - in my imagination, that is.  "The Fast and the Furious" series is the alpha male of modern car chase movies.  And as an "adult", I've come to realize that there's more to these flicks than just action scenes and cool looking hipness - there's an actual ongoing theme at work.  These movies are about family.  More specifically, the family bonds that form between the disaffected outcasts of society, and how the loyalty and love within these families are tested by the forces of greed, pride, and dishonor.  Sounds fruity, but it's true.  And "Fast Five" is the best one of the bunch.  Now, a recap . . .


The Fast and the Furious (2001)

A hollywood producer buys the rights to remake a 1955 Roger Corman-produced car flick called "The Fast and the Furious".  Another producer reads an article in Vibe magazine about illegal street racing.  These producers get together, combine ideas, and make a movie about an undercover FBI agent (Paul Walker) infiltrating a group of street racers/high speed thieves led by Vin Diesel.  Add action director Rob Cohen ("XXX", "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story", "Daylight") and here it is.  Plot-wise, it's basically "Point Break" with cars instead of surfboards, but it's a good movie, the one that started it all.

2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)

Vin Diesel decided to sit this one out, so Paul Walker takes the lead and teams up with another bald slab of beef played by Tyrese Gibson.  In order to make up for the choices he made in the first movie, Mr. Walker must infiltrate and take down a slimy drug lord in Miami.  John Singleton (!) of "Boyz n the Hood", "Higher Learning", and "Four Brothers" took over the director's chair.  The action is crazier, the mood is more over colorful and over the top, and there's an unintended homosexual undercurrent between Walker and Gibson that makes this movie 100 times funnier than it was meant to be.  Not as overt as the undercurrent in "A Nightmare on Elm St Part 2: Freddy's Revenge", but it's definitely present.  What's the meaning of this, Singleton?

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)

Considered by many to be the black sheep of the series, I rather liked it.  The original two stars decided not to return, so Lucas Black (combining the beefslabbiness of Diesel and the whitebread blandness of Walker into one body) was cast as the main guy, a teenager who moves to Tokyo and gets involved with street racing, Yakuza gangsters, and Lil Bow Wow (or just Bow Wow now).  There's even more crazy action, a classic fish-out-of-water story, and elements of a high school drama (new to the series), which all add up to something a little different.  And Han rocks (my favorite character in the entire series, played by Sung Kang).  Director Justin Lin and writer Chris Morgan took over the franchise from here on out.  Chronologically, the events in "Tokyo Drift" take place after the other four movies in the series.  I won't reveal the reason why, because it's a spoiler.  Point is, you can save this movie for last if you're planning a marathon.

Fast & Furious (2009)

I always thought it should be titled "Fast & 4ious".  Okay, that's stupid.  But here's where the series finally clicks.  Lots of already established characters return for more action, including Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, who team up south of the border to avenge the death of a loved one.  And there's another drug dealer bad guy.  Lin and Morgan are back, directing and writing.  The action scenes may be the most unbelievable in the entire series, but they're still fun (there's a big "Mad Max"-style desert chase at the end!), and it's great to see everybody together again.  Takes place before "Tokyo Drift", and is the best installment up to this point.

At last we come to "Fast Five".  After a high speed jailbreak, Diesel and Walker (no longer FBI) attempt a train heist which goes wrong, killing two Federal Marshals.  Soon after, badass Hobbs (Dwayne "Formerly The Rock" Johnson) and his task force are sent to Rio de Janerio to apprehend the duo, who are planning one final heist - to rob the local drug lord Reyes (played by veteran drug lord actor Joaqim de Almeida) and ride off into the sunset as retirees.  This is a real treat for "Fast" fans, as many characters from previous installments show up to participate in the action (along with a couple of secret cameo appearances).  Justin Lin directs, Chris Morgan writes (along with Gary Scott Thompson, writer of the very first one).  And, yes, it takes place before "Tokyo Drift".

The greatest thing the filmmakers did here was cast "The Rock".  He's basically playing the Tommy Lee Jones character from "The Fugitive", but that's okay, because there's really nothing original about the plots or characters in these movies anyway.  He barrels into the movie, takes charge of chewing the scenery, engages Diesel in a spirited bout of fisticuffs (which makes me long for the Stallone vs Schwarzenegger fight that should have happened 30 years ago), and even says the F-word for the first time on screen (in a PG-13 movie, ha ha).  Finally, he's in a GOOD movie, not his usual stuff, which ranges in quality from terrible ("The Tooth Fairy") to merely "okay" ("The Rundown").  He's got the charisma to be a major star, and this is the first movie I've seen in which he truly uses those powers for good.

As for the rest of the cast, it's great to see them all together, forming some new character relationships that frankly surprised and delighted me.  The filmmakers clearly love these characters, and it shows.  This entry has the most heart of all the "Fast" flicks.  It's a crazy hip hop soap opera.  That family theme I was talking about earlier really leaps to the forefront here, with some moments that actually manage to tug at the heartstrings a little bit.  How about that?

But enough with that mushy stuff, how about the action?  Yes, the laws of physics are bent and some are broken.  It didn't matter when I was playing with my little Matchbox cars back in the day, and it doesn't matter now.  It's fantasy, baby.  The chase sequence which ends this movie is wild as hell.  It's a non-stop orgy of fun and destruction, with two cars pulling a giant vault through the streets of Rio, pursued by hundreds of cop cars.  It's the biggest and best action scene in the entire series. 

Plus, there are the usual elements of hot half naked bodies, loud pop music, cheesy one-liners, animated end credits, Diesel growling his dialogue, Walker doing his best impression of cardboard, all the usual tropes.  Love it!

This movie is one overall satisfying ride.  Hell, it's even winning over people who don't normally like the "Fast" movies!  It's a great 10th anniversary (!) love letter to us fans who've stuck around all this time, and I look forward to "Fast Six" or "Furious Six" or "The F6st and the "F6ri6us", or whatever they decide to call it.  Oh yeah, it's really on the way!

P.S. - Be sure to stick around, because after the animated credits at the end of the movie there's a super secret scene which caused the (packed) audience I saw the movie with to simultaneously crap their pants in surprise.  Alright, I can't confirm the crapping, but it was the loudest gasp I've ever heard from a crowd so large.  We're off to Berlin, baby!

Here's an interview with the screenwriter.  I'm totally on the same wavelength as this guy. . .