Fast Five – Review

It has been 10 years since the original The Fast And The Furious film came long, it spawned a franchise and here we are with the fifth installment to the series. Fast Five takes place right after Fast and Furious but before Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift. We find that the remaining gang Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) and Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster) are in hiding after they busted Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) from prison. On the run from the law in Brazil they jump into a job that leads to dead DEA agents. The gang seek revenge on those who wronged them, namely the crime boss Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida). Standing in there way is Federal Agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) intent on capturing them.

To really enjoy this film and feel any kind of investment you really need to be some what familiar with the series, it does help to have seen the previous entries. They do however add in some details for those who aren’t in the know or need a quick refresher. Smart move in my book, as I hadn’t seen the other films for awhile and I had almost forgotten what had happened. We also see the inclusion of characters from the previous films with Vince (Matt Schulze) from The Fast and The Furious, Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Tej (Chris ‘Ludarcris’ Bridges) from 2 Fast 2 Furious, Han (Sung Kang) from Toyko Drift and Gisele (Gal Gadot) from Fast And Furious. So you have a lot of already established characters and it is difficult to connect with them if you aren’t already familiar with them. And new characters have a little bit of build up but nothing really substantial. I enjoyed being with these characters, they are likable and fun to be around. The main villain wasn’t really explained too well, he just looked evil which I think was meant to be good enough. The coolest new character and one I definitely wanted to see more about was Hobbs.

On the acting side on the fence, Walker, Diesel and Brewster were all good; can play these characters in their sleep. The chemistry is still there and it is what really holds the film together, each character has their own aspects to enjoy. I think they all did a fine job, the other members of the gang were all good as well. But the stand out was easily Gibson who got the one liners and was pretty funny. Johnson is quite the bad ass here, this is the kind of role I want to see him in. He looked ripped, the man got into some serious shape for this film, he was his usual charming and charismatic self. It really did seem like everyone had fun making this film. Being that this is a Fast and Furious film, it was action packed. From start to finish, it really did not slow down at all. They really got the most out of their locations, the car chase sequences are exciting, the on foot chase scenes were fantastic and some hand to hand combat was also really well done. I did have some problems with how over the top this film went, it just did not seem to fit in with the tone that the series had. It was like The A-Team meets Commando kind of craziness, while I did enjoy some of it, it was a little hard to take in.

Over all this is a solid entry for the franchise and the genre, believe me there are far worse films out there. Fast Five is something that you can just switch off, and relax. You don’t need to think, you just have some fun. It is a good popcorn film, nothing more and nothing less. I wasn’t expecting an intelligent film with perfect science, I expected a fun and action packed film and it delivered. If you are a fan of the franchise, see it. If not, I can safely say this probably wont be your cup of tea.

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