Saturday 15 May 2021

Fast & Furious (Justin Lin, 2009)

Five years after the events of the first film, Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) is living in Central America, boosting gas tankers and other shady jobs.

When girlfriend Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) is murdered, Dom returns home to get vengeance on the cartel behind her death.

This puts him on a collision course with Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker), now working for the FBI and on his own mission to bring down the cartel.

Brought together by circumstance, will the former friends put aside their differences to take down the bad guys?


And thus we reach a crucial point, both in the Fast & Furious saga, and also in my viewing experience - Fast & Furious is the last movie in the franchise that I have never seen before.

Weirdly I do remember this movie coming out. There was a promotional piece in Empire magazine with soundbites from key cast, and there was a line from Vin Diesel in which he talked about how he felt comfortable returning to a franchise after working on Find Me Guilty with Sidney Lumet. Reading that, I could not help rolling my eyes - the previous year I had caught a free screening of Diesel's last vehicle Babylon A.D. That movie was not great and died at the box office, so Diesel's return to F&F felt like an attempt to rebuild his box office credibility.

‘New model. Original parts.’ At the time this movie’s tagline felt cheesy. Now it feels oddly poignant. After watching the first three movies, this movie feels like the stars coming into alignment.


It helps the franchise finally had a director who understood the tenets of the franchise. Under Justin Lin’s sure hand, the cast and all the familiar tropes (the cars, the music, the montages of woman gyrating etc) feel of a piece.


The plot is still generic undercover action nonsense, but having the old gang together gave the proceedings a bit of juice (or NOS). What struck me about this movie was how much of a two-hander it is between Dom and Brian. The movie is premised on resolving the conflicts of the first movie, which makes it feel like a remake of 2 Fast 2 Furious, which tried to transpose the distrust with Dom to Roman Pierce (Tyrese Gibson). The narrative of this movie reminded me of other long-delayed sequels, which try to use the time away to give their stories added gravitas (Tron Legacy, Bad Boys For Life).


While the previous movies felt like time capsules for overusing certain techniques, this movie came out post-Bourne, with more aggressive editing and handheld camera. After the clean filmmaking of Tokyo Drift, I was surprised at this turn - it felt like a regression.


That being said, this style choice is not as prevalent as in, for instance, Quantum of Solace.


The cast are pretty good - Diesel seems to relish Dom’s revenge storyline, giving the character a simmering menace which is a little generic but for the character, it is interesting. The movie leans into Diesel’s bulked-up physique, giving Dom more of a exaggerated physicality comparable to the action heroes of old - it also feels like a trait that was pushed further in the later instalments. This is the last movie in which Diesel is the hard body figure of the series - after the Rock’s Luke Hobbs shows up, Dom is pitched more towards everyman territory.


Weirdly, the performer I found most interesting was Walker. Introduced in a parkour chase that feels like a budget version of late noughties action set pieces, Brian is now a super-pro, an FBI agent who knows his way around law enforcement and the underworld. He cannot quite sell the character’s burnout, or his remorse for breaking up the Toretto family, but he has an inherent solidness that is compelling.


Sung Kang has a small cameo as Han - I was surprised at how small his role was.


Gal Gadot makes her first appearance as Giselle, who became a Fast Family member in the next movie. Here she is a minor enforcer for the main bad guy - she has a romantic subplot with Dom that falls flat. Gadot is not the strongest actress, and this role demands a charisma and humour that she does not have. 


This movie was a big hit but at the end of watching it, I felt underwhelmed. Ultimately the movie feels like an amped-up sequel (basically a more epic versionof the original movie). Having more Dom, Brian and Mia was good, but this movie also highlights how effective they are in small doses. They need to be part of an ensemble. They - and I as a viewer - need the Family.


It would take one more movie for the franchise to finally realise itself.


Previous post

The Fast and the Furious



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