By Dylan Moran
It took five attempts, but they finally got it right.
Director Justin Lin has served up a fantastic heist movie with Fast and Furious Five with a perfect mix of well-crafted storyline and great action.
Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) returns for what slots in as his fourth movie in the series – a series which has seen Brian be a good cop in the first film, bad in the second, before going completely off the rails in 2009’s Fast and Furious, the fourth film in the franchise.
In Fast Five Brian teams up again with Dominic Torreto (Vin Diesel) and Dom’s sister Mia (Jordana Brewster), this time in Brazil. They’re trying to take down the insidious villain Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida) who has all of Rio de Janiero wrapped around his little finger.
Hot on the tails of Dom and his team is hard-as-nails DEA agent Luke Judd (Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson) who’s clearly used to being a big fish, but is insignificant in this foreign country.
Fast Five has the classic action cliché of bad guys being bad guys, good guys breaking the law to get what they want and Dom, Mia and Brian somewhere in between but hunted by both sides.
To pull off their heist, Brian and Dom enlist the help of quite a few friends from earlier films. Vince (Matt Schulze) who wasn’t Brian’s biggest fan in The Fast and The Furious is back to stir up the pot, and Tej (Ludacris) and Roman Harper (Tyrese Gibson) reprise their roles from 2 Fast 2 Furious. Roman still hasn’t learnt when to shut up, but Han (Sung Kang) from Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift is there to lend a helping hand, remember, this film takes place before the events in Tokyo Drift.
Rounding the crew out are Gisele (Gal Gadot) and Leo (Tego Calderon) from Fast and Furious.
A new addition to the franchise is the stunningly beautiful Elsa Patakay as Elena, the widow of a police officer killed by Reyes, who is added to Hobbs’ team as soon as they touch down in Brazil.
There is a lot of eye candy in Fast Five, as you’d expect. From the aforementioned Patakay, to Gadot, Walker, Diesel, Brewster, Johnson and Gibson, there’s something for everyone. Then there’s Dom’s iconic Charger, the Challenger police cars, the DEA van Hobbs rolls (and leaps) the streets in and the absolute beast of a truck involved in the opening heist.
But to all you car fanatics, prepare to be a little disappointed: this is not a two hour ricer and muscle fest. By every definition, it’s a turbocharged heist movie. But is the lack of combustion candy a bad thing?
The earlier films featured a blend of terribly engineered cars, product placement and insipid driving, while Lin now goes for the ‘less is more’ approach. And he does make up for the lack of Nos-filled ‘Danger to Manifold’ drags and parking-lot drift races with sporadic but impressive automotive action.
The acting isn’t going to win anyone an Oscar but it is surprisingly good. It may not seem like saying much, but Johnson offers up the best performance of his career having finally learned yelling won’t get him anywhere, while Diesel maintains the quiet tough-guy image. Walker is so used to his character asking questions every three seconds he could probably host his own TV quiz show in character.
Lin has also finally managed to find the balance between flirting with reality and going fully overboard. There are few moments in the movie where you go “yeah right” and more where you’re cackling gleefully at the ludicrous antics, with appreciation for the way Lin has stepped away from the Michael Bay-like nature he approached Fast and Furious with. It’s clear he’s refined his craft over the three movies he’s been involved with and working on hit TV show Community has probably helped him out too.
The franchise has stepped away from its drag racing roots, but at the finish line it’s got a better top end. And like every heist, there’s a fantastic payoff if you stay until the very finish.
Four and a half stars.
3 News
Fast
Five
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Director: Justin Lin
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Starring:Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Jordana Brewster, Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot, Elsa Pataky, Tyrese Gibson, Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges, Matt Schulze, Sung Kang, Tego Calderon, Don Omar, Joaquim de Almeida
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Running Time: 126 mins
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Rating: M - contains violence and offensive
language
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Release Date: April 21, 2011
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Trailer: Watch here
