Fast Five review

I don’t think it’s too embarrassing to confess that I enjoyed the first “Fast and the Furious” film – wait, let me make sure I’m clear that I’m referring to 2001’s Rob Cohen-directed “THE Fast and THE Furious,” not Justin Lin’s 2009 sequel “Fast & Furious.”  I don’t provide this clarification because with the intention of slighting Justin Lin’s film – I just never bothered to see it.  In fact, none of the subsequent films in the franchise really piqued my interest, so I never got around to watching any of them (though I did find myself briefly intrigued by a section of “Tokyo Drift” that I caught on HBO).  Whatever.  The bottom line is that I’ve only seen the first film.  I wouldn’t be watching “Fast Five” if it hadn’t been so damned successful both financially ($200 million domestic) as well as critically (78 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the only film in the franchise that was certified fresh).

I figured this was probably a franchise where the plot was thin enough to jump into at any film.  I can’t imagine these things have cliffhangers at the end.  Well, I started “Fast Five” and had to jump to Wikipedia within the first five minutes.  The film starts with Vin Diesel’s character being convicted and sentenced to 25 years with no explanation of the charges.  After reading the Wiki summary of the previous film, I… honestly I have no fucking clue why he went to prison.  If you think my writing style is bad, I implore you to go read the plot summary of “Fast & Furious.”  No, really.  If you can read this sentence:

“Later on, Dominic takes Leticia's stuff and he takes her phone and recalls the last number,revealed to be Brian's number and he realises Brian was the last person to contact her and that he placed her for Braga's driver which resulted in him being attacked by Dominic until he learned Brian put Leticia undercover for tracking down Braga so she could clear Dominic's name.”

and explain to me what the hell it means, you’re far better at reading comprehension than I am.  I’d like to see someone diagram that sucker.

Okay, so Vin Diesel’s Dom character was going to jail for…something, I guess.  And in the first minute of this film he’s bailed out of a prison bus because of a daring high speed chase that manages to cause no casualties despite the fact that the bus flips over like eleventy billion times.  Sure, whatever.   I’m just going to accept that now, recognizing that this may be the most plausible sequence in the film (yes, I’ve written all this after watching only the first two minutes.  I’m cranking it back up now.

Ten minutes later…

Looks like I was right about the believability of that whole non-fatal bus flipping scene.  I just watched a sequence where they were stealing cars off a moving train.  It’s entirely possible that I’m just not up on advanced carjacking procedures, but I definitely find myself scratching my head over the plausibility of that.  But when I get right down to it, it’s been over 20 years since I touched a physics textbook so maybe I’m just out of touch.  But here’s the damning thing about it all – it didn’t really bother me that much.  While watching the sequence, I laughed aloud at how obscenely implausible it all was but that didn’t change the fact that the scene was well shot, well edited, and overall quite exciting.  Turns out Mr. Scott from Star Trek was wrong.  You CAN change the laws of physics.

So okay, I’m going to try to embrace the rest of this thing as the sheer popcorn movie that it seems to be.   I can do this.  Pee break, then we’re gonna jump back in. 

…and I’m back.  I thought sure this would be a movie where I’d have to take a break every five to ten minutes to write some sort of scathing critique, but I just finished the flick.  And y’know what?  It was really good.  Stupid?  Oh hell to the yes.  But it was easily one of the funnest movies to watch this year.   Alright, let’s dig into it.

The plot… like I said, I’ve only seen the first film.  I didn’t really care about the rest of them because I just don’t seem to have that automotive hard-on that some other dudes have.  The first film had just about all the “street racing” excitement I required for at least ten years.  I just didn’t feel the need for more.

Which is why the storyline of “Fast Five” was so surprising.  This isn’t another street racing film.  It’s a flat out heist picture.   Seriously.  If you replaced Vin Diesel and Paul Walker with Clooney and Pitt, this could be Ocean’s 14 (though the high amount of automobile action probably means it’d be better as the planned-yet-unproduced sequel to “The Italian Job.”).   You’ve got a defined villain in Joaquim de Almeida, a defined objective (a hundred million in cash), an assembled crew with different specialties (made up primarily of characters from previous films in the franchise),  an elaborate plan that requires precise timing to succeed… look, I don’t need to list off the expectations of a heist film.  Just believe me when I say that “Fast Five” hits all the required marks.

But then there’s the fly in the ointment – with all this going on, the crew is also being pursued by federal agents led by Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson, formerly known as “The Rock.”).  In a film already overwhelmed by testosterone, Johnson puts everything over the top.  I’ve long been a fan of Johnson, but he never seemed to find a role that really capitalized on his charisma and presence.  He’s found that role here, and he stands out in every scene he’s in.  Don’t misunderstand me – I’m not trying to insinuate that The Rock is the next Pacino.  But he SHOULD be the next Schwarzenegger.

Like most heist pictures, important details of the actual heist are grazed over during the planning stage so the audience can be involved and surprised as the events play out.  That said, some of the elements rushed over do create inconsistencies (Hobbs has satellite surveillance for Dom’s known vehicle, but they never seem to detect him until the EXACT moment Dom wants to be detected, despite the fact that he doesn’t know he’s being hunted based on his car).  There’s also one thing here that’s always bothered me in these heist films that involve elaborate pre-planning – it seems like the technology utilized by the crew would cost an enormous amount of money to get hold of for the purposes of planning, and no one ever explains where the money or the means comes from to obtain this gear.  At least here they gloss over it with a throwaway line or two, but I still think obtaining a brand spanking new 11x7 state-of-the-art freestanding safe is a helluva lot of work.

But like I said two hours ago, if you’re going to analyze this film within those sort of confines, you’re going to find a hell of a lot of problems long before you start trying to determine where the safe and surveillance gear came from.  You’ll probably still be working out how that bus flip didn’t kill anybody.  Just shut up and watch the pretty pictures.

And they ARE pretty pictures.  Director Lin and his cinematographer Stephen F. Windon make the most out of their Rio de Janeiro locations, giving us great views of the beaches, Dona Marta (the slums) and the oft-photographed Christ the Redeemer statue.   

Prior to this movie, my only experience with Justin Lin was from his work on the TV show “Community,” particularly the Season One episode “Modern Warfare.”  If you haven’t seen that episode, it’s well worth checking out.  I would argue that it may be  one of the best half hours of television in recent years.   In a genre that could easily allow for Michael Bay style frenetic editing, Lin brings a more conservative style to the proceedings and it works quite well.  There are certainly moments where fast cutting and shaky-cam rear their head, but Lin uses it in moderation and only when the scene requires that kind of pacing.  He has a clear definition of spatial relationships, and very rarely is that vision compromised by questionable blocking (the most glaring example is in the final chase sequence (which is insane, by the way).  De Almeida’s character is in an SUV, but it’s never entirely clear where exactly that SUV is in the grand scheme of things.  It’s not a massive detraction, but I did find it worth noting when every other action sequence seems so well-defined).  

In the acting department, no awards shall be awarded.  That doesn’t mean that anyone is bad – in fact, I found most of the cast to be quite likable in their respective characters.  As I mentioned earlier, Dwayne Johnson owns pretty much any scene he’s in.  Someone dust off your old Commando reboot scripts! 

If it seems like I’m going overboard with this review, I think it’s partially because I’m just so damn surprised by the film.  I certainly had it mentally tagged as idiot-food – and I was right – but it’s rare to encounter idiot food quite so tasty.  If there’s to be another sequel (and there’s a scene in the middle of the end credits that certainly suggests there will be), I might just be inclined to see it in a theatre if it follows the trajectory laid out here.  It may seem like backhanded praise to say that, but it’s certainly a different position than what I would have taken prior to seeing “Fast Five.”

Fast Five, released by Universal Pictures April 29, 2011.  Directed by Justin Lin.  Written by Chris Morgan (based on characters created by Gary Scott Thompson).  Starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, and Jordana Brewster.  130 minutes.  Budget $125 million.  Now available on DVD/BR.