Fast Five

Fast Five
Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Chris Bridges and Dwayne Johnson
Rated PG-13
Director: Justin Lin

Dominic, O’Connor and crew try to avoid a federal agent while taking down a crime lord in Rio.

What “ The Fast and the Furious” was to “Point Break”, “Fast Five” is to “Oceans Eleven” and that isn’t a bad thing at all. While the second, third and fourth installments have been forgettable to say the least Fast Five brings a sense of fun back to the series and reinvigorates it. This is still a Fast and the Furious film so don’t expect any great dialogue or character development but that isn’t what this series is about in the first place. You get fast cars, scantily clad ladies a lot of mindless action and some great car chases.
From the get go the first thing that Fast Five does right is it goes back to its roots by taking the premise of another movie and setting it into the Torretto/O’Connor universe,(fun doesn’t have to be original) this time instead of having the undercover cop infiltrate the tight knit family of surfers/bank robbers I mean Street racers/Robbers we have Torretto (Vin Diesal) in the Clooney role with O’Connor(Paul Walker) stepping into Pitts shoes, that’s right for all its flash and sizzle, Fast Five is a good old fashioned heist movie. Rather than rob a vault in an impenetrable casino we have a crew robbing a vault in an impenetrable police station. Just like Oceans Eleven we have an ensemble cast, rather than introduce new characters Fast Five is filled with characters (Tyrese Gibson, Chris Bridges, Sung Kang, Matt Schultzein,Gal Gadot) from the previous films in the series to give it the all star treatment. The crew is so reminiscent of Oceans Eleven that Leo & Santos (Tego Calderon & Don Omar) might want to think about billing themselves as the Portuguese speaking Casey Affleck and Scott Cahn.

The new addition to mix this time is Dwayne Johnson who finally plays the type of character that fans of his have been hoping he would have done for years complete with ass kicking and one liners. As Hobbs the federal agent hot on Torretos trail we get a worthy adversary that will no doubt be back in future additions to the series.

Fast Five is the longest in the series giving ample screen time to prep for the heist, this is the only real point where the actions slows down however the ensuing car chase more than makes up for it.
I could have done without the final ten minute recap at the end which felt forced but
Fast Five delivers everything one could expect or want from the franchise, it’s easily the best since the original and given that its Michelle Rodriguez free, it could be the best of them all.

Grade -83