Review of Fast Five (2011) by Ben J — 25 Jul 2014

Just to preface this review, I have never watched any entry in this franchise before this point. I decided to give them a go in the series entirety after being convinced that I will enjoy at least "one" of them. I've now watched part 5 and here is what I thought.

Wow. This is what I'm talking about. Aside from being a significant improvement over all previous installments, "Fast Five" pretty much has it all. This is the movie I was hoping I'd get while watching this series. Its exciting, funny, sexy, and dare I say even a little bit "smart". The formula here has completely changed and for the better. Clearly Justin Lin and company wanted to finally make something more unique and fun for the viewers after the dreary and boring "Fast and Furious". Here, Lin get's to really show off his tool set as an action director.

Gone are the days of worthless, screen chewing scenes of car race after car race. Now, the series has moved on from that and proven it can take the cast, style and story and spin it into much more entertaining territory. After all, its not 2001 anymore. One can't get away with simply laying down a Lincoln Park track over a car race and call it a day. Now, people invested into this franchise deserve more. And that's exactly what they got with "Fast Five".

The story picks up immediately after the events of 4. Brian and Mia break Dom out of a prison transport (still not able to do a lot without endangering many lives, but what they heck). The action picks back up with Brian and Mia in Rio. Its unclear what happened to Dom, but its not long before he shows back up and joins them on another heist, this time a train, where they as usual lose the payoff and almost get innocent people killed. At this point though, I had to let that go. Dom, Mia, and Brian reunite with one of Dom's original crew members from part one, the always untrustworthy Vince and together they steal a car that carries a chip inside. The chip is a blue print for a drug kingpin's entire network including his money.

Already the plot is more interesting than any of the other entries and it only get's better as we are introduced t the agent tasked to find Dom and Brian. The usually reliable Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson plays Agent Hobbs and boy, is he a bad ass. I love the addition of this character and "The Rock" just kills it and steals every scene he's in. Its a great plot device to use a second and in my opinion more solid protagonist to help us sympathize with our antiheroes. Because, let's face it, Brian and Dom are not good guys. If they ever were, they aren't anymore. Sure they will occasionally do the right thing, but for the most part, they are selfish thieves who only do what's in their best interests. That works fine in the context of this film. We now know these characters and just want t see them pulling off heists. So the addition of Hobbs makes sense because it gives us a straight up good guy, looking for the bad guy (cat and mouse).

As for the characters in this film. Its funny how even though I was never solely invested into one character throughout the series, I got goosebumps when characters from preious films showed up to join the team. It was another great plot device to get people reinvested and to make it its own solid universe. My favorite character from the second installment is back, Roman. Not much for him to do this time around, but he's used perfectly and adds some comic relief to the film. Ludacris, also from the second one is here as I guess a techy guy? Didn't really get that impression from him the last time we saw him, but whatever. Also returning to confuse everyone is Han. Thought he was dead, but I guess these film all take place before "Tokyo Drift". Ok, I'll buy that. They even brought back Gisele from the previous film.

The inclusion of all these characters could have been a disaster and a complete mess, but somehow its not and Lin totally pulls it off and balances it out perfectly. Dom and Brian come full circle here as friends and as human beings and its refreshing to see. It only took 5 movies, but they finally decided to have these characters open up about themselves and about their lives before they met. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Dom and Brian talking about their fathers gave us all the insight we would ever need to know to finally feel comfortable with these guys. Brian's dad was absent, boom! I get his character completely now and why he does what he does. Dom's dad was a good father, boom! I now understand his preachy ways about loyalty and family. Great, moving on.

As the story progresses Hobbs get's closer to finding out what the crew is up to. Also the kingpin now knows what is going on. So through some bait and switch techniques, Dom and crew confuse everyone by misdirection. This stuff is not the work of geniuses, but for this franchise, you'd think they all just took the pill from "Limitless" because they all grew brains since the last film. The last 40 minutes of this film is all action and its fun. Hand down the most exciting entry in the series and the only one you actually care about anyone living or dying. Bravo to Lin for that. Once we have people to care about, the action doesn't just feel like a lot of stunts and noise. It get's intense.

This film is much more violent than previous entries with the inclusion of the Rio cartel and FBI task force. It gives it a more dyer of circumstances feel and not just Brian smashing cars and yelling like a cowboy. This film essentially has two endings. One is a blazing shootout that is intense as all hell. The other is the heist were Dom and Brian drag a giant volt from a bank through the streets of Rio. Yeah, they cause so much damage that there's no way the FEDs would ever stop looking for them. Plus, they probably killed hundreds of innocent people just walking around, but I've come to terms with that element in this series. The car chases are so well orchestrated and fun to watch that you have to suspend disbelief that they are not actually killing everyone in their path.

This is the best entry in the series so far and really, its not even close. This was a complete 180 and a totally surprise. I was fully enveloped in this movie and followed it to the end without a blink. Its a real "Action Movie" in every sense. It has practical effects, real stunts, bruiting characters, and people to care about. The fight with Vin and The Rock is great and over the top, the new friendship between Dom and Brian is great and really makes it a better film knowing that these two are friends now, and the inclusion of past characters from there entree just makes it more fun. Its literally got it all. I'm finally on board with this series after 5 movies and I can't wait to see the 6th.