Andy's Archive: Fast Five (2011)

Credit: Universal Studios

I watched the first in what would become a movie franchise, The Fast and The Furious, back in 2001 when I was in high school. I wasn't too thrilled with it, as it seemed like a paper thin plot with an excuse to show off shiny cars in drag races. I returned to the series ten years later for this fifth installment, simply titled Fast Five, because of it's co-star "The Rock" Dwayne Johnson. The Rock has been appearing in movies as long as they have been cranking out these Fast and Furious movies, but just like that series, I didn't seem too impressed. However this actually looked like something up my alley and it might actually be the type of movie that can take advantage of The Rock's charismatic wrestling persona more than his previous work.

I was actually correct. The Rock does exactly what he did in the world of wrestling, which is to show up, spit out funny one-liners, and throw punches. That's not all, as this movie storms out of the gate with wacky car stunts and incredible brawls. As I said before, I missed out on the previous installments, but I felt like this fifth movie did a great job of bringing me up to speed on the characters, but it also didn't weigh down the movie with too much plot. Its pretty simple, as the story seems rather self-contained- Dom (Vin Diesel), Brian (Paul Walker), and Mia (Jordana Brewster) are fugitives but can't resist one last "job", which is stealing more of these seductive cars. Its predictably disastrous, landing them in hot water with a villainous businessman and a federal agent, which is where The Rock enters the story.

It doesn't stop with just The Rock. Dom and Brian gather a team of past characters to pull off one final job (including Tyrese and Ludacris), which actually turns the film into more of a heist/caper movie, going beyond the fast cars. There's even a chase on foot across rooftops, which is not only an adrenaline rush but its filmed marvelously and perfectly captures the local scenery in Rio. It reminded me of a similar chase from the recent Daniel Craig 007 movies, which possibly reveals the inspiration behind this movie's story that pits Dom and Brian's team against the evil business man and his henchmen. It seems to follow the Bond template as well, with an opening action sequence with stunts galore, next the hero(es) meet the villain, recon work is done with a few shenanigans along the way, leading to a big action-packed finale.

I said The Rock was the reason I wanted to watch Fast Five, yet it turned out I liked Tyrese as Roman Pearce most of all. He's a wise-cracking and smooth talking member of the team, who actually wanted no part in the job, that is until he realized 100 million dollars was at stake. A highlight was when he went undercover into a police station posing as an FBI agent, yet hilariously used the badge of Paul Walker's character Brian O'Conner; maybe that's not as hilarious as it sounds, but Roman pulls it off with his smooth essence.

There is one slight flaw with the movie, which could be a plot hole the size of crater if you're unable to suspend belief. Movies and television always have their contrivances, it's just the nature of the business. The businessman in Fast Five stores all of his money in one giant-sized vault, just like a cartoonish Bond villain (see the similarities?) If he actually had good business sense, he'd store it online in several off-shore accounts, yet that means Dom and Brian wouldn't be able to clean him out of his millions as easily as stealing that vault. So if you can overlook the preposterous nature of the movie, you'll enjoy one hell of a ride that Fast Five has to offer.