Review of Fast Five (2011) by The D — 20 Jun 2013

(6.5/10).

Fast Five is the fifth installment of the popular Fast and the Furious franchise and it reunites most of the original cast members including Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibson, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges many others as well as a few new faces, namely Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. I was never a fan of the franchise and I thought all the films were pretty poor, with the first one being barely passable. I am happy to say that Fast Five is a huge leap forward for the franchise and injects new life into it. The biggest problem with the previous installments was that they took themselves way too seriously. They fixed that problem in this one because this one is completely over the top and it looks like everyone is having a blast.

The film still has plenty of problems though, including the incredibly thin, bare-bones plot and a lack of character development. These are minor quibbles if you just look at this movie as a cheesy B-movie. If you do that, you're likely to have a blast with Fast Five. I'm not going to delve into the plot much because there isn't much of one, but there are a few breathtaking action scenes over the course of the film that I would like to talk about. The first one is when Vin Diesel and his crew have to steal a bunch of luxury cars from a moving train. This scene is very exciting and features a number of jaw-dropping shots including the one you probably saw if you watched the trailer (The one where they drive off a cliff and jump out of the car in mid-air). Right off the bat, you can see that the laws of physics do not apply to this movie.

The star of the film for me was easily Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Here, he is having the time of his life in this role and completely steals the show. He plays a humongous FBI agent who is on the track of Vin Diesel and his company. This leads to another terrific action scene where Dwayne Johnson is pursuing them through the favellas in Brazil.

There is one big action scene at the end that is worth the price of admission alone. I am of course talking about the ridiculous car chase that qualifies as one of the most awesome car chases in all of cinema. You have to see it to believe it.

Those are the major action scenes in the movie and they are incredible, but unfortunately the movie can't be all action all the time. The filler stuff in between the action scenes is dreadfully boring and the dialogue is atrocious. The acting by everyone other than Dwayne Johnson isn't the greatest either. Because there is such a basic plot and no fleshed out characters, you don't care about much in between the action scenes and you just want another breathtaking set-piece to start.

I probably don't like this movie as much as a lot of people do and the fact that it holds the same Tomatometer rating as my favorite movie of all time (Requiem for a Dream) is stupefying to me. I will say that this movie is actually pretty good if you don't take it seriously and is a huge step forward for the franchise. Watch it for the action sequences if nothing else and you won't be disappointed.