THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
If you told people in 2001 that The Fast and the Furious would be an ongoing franchise that would span decades, they would reply with laughter because it would sound unbelievable. In 2011, everyone accepted this reality with the fifth entry known as Fast Five.
PLOT
The film takes place where the last film had left off. Brian O'Conner and Mia Toretto have become wanted fugitives after freeing the latter's brother Dominic from incarceration. The couple meets up with their old friend Vince at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He has now had a child with a woman named Rosa (Jeirmarie Osorio). They get a job to steal cars from a train the next day. On the day of, they reunite with Dom and two who work for Brazilian crime lord Hernan Reyes. While Vince takes a 1972 De Tomaso Pantera GTS, Reyes' right hand man Zizi (Michael Irby) only has interest in a Ford GT40. When this makes Dom suspicious, he lets Mia take it and instructs her to flee. This results in a scuffle involving the remaining men on the train. When the DEA agents attempt to intervene, Zizi shoots them down as an intent to frame the Torettos. Dom and Brian board a 1968 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport Sting Ray to escape the train. After driving off a cliff into a ravine, they are captured by more of Reyes' men. Their captivity doesn't last long as they quickly escape after meeting the crime lord personally. When they reunite with Mia, they take apart the GT40 piece by piece to figure out what their new foe wanted from it. When Vince returns, he attempts to take a computer chip from the car but Dom catches him. He explains that the chip is what Reyes really wanted and he intended to sell it back to him. Because Mia could've been in danger, Dom kicks him out of their hideout and doesn't let him take the chip. By morning, they discover the chip's information. They find all financial details of Reyes' criminal empire, including stash houses that hide millions of dollars. Just as they discover this, they get chased by two groups. The first is Zizi's group of henchmen while the other includes DSS (Diplomatic Security Service) agents led by Luke Hobbs. As Dom is able to flee, he encounters local officer Elena Neves who was handpicked by Hobbs to help track them down. During a shootout, he loses his necklace but she takes it. When catching up with Brian and Mia, they agree to stay together when Mia announces her pregnancy. Hobbs and his crew scout their hideout to see if they can figure out what they're up to. He orders the GT40 to be rebuilt to see what they want. When finding another hideout, Dom agrees with Brian to steal all of Reyes' money. Knowing that this will be difficult with just them and Mia, they recruit older friends to help out. Brian recruits Roman Pearce as the 'fast talker' (talk himself out of any situation) and Tej Parker as the expert hacker. Dom hires multiple allies: Han Seoul-Oh is picked as a 'chameleon' for being so stealth that he can mix with any environment to be discreet. Gisele is called for her supply of utilities and weapons. Tego Leo and Rico Santos get picked for their use of explosives. All are on board when they agree to split $100 million total. They attack one stash house to make Reyes place it all in one location. When it's all put in a vault at a police station, Dom chooses to move forward with the heist. Rome poses as an agent to place a box in the evidence room. The box contains a remote control car with a camera to get a view of the vault. Knowing that it looks difficult to crack, Han gets them a duplicate to practice. The main thing they need is Reyes' handprint due to the use of a palm scanner. Gisele gets the prints when he encounters him near the beach. Leo and Santos use explosives to destroy the bathroom. When they pose as repairmen, they hack into the CCTV to see the inner workings of the station. Hobbs finds out that the fugitives took the chip and when also discovering their attack on one of the stash houses, he gets the entire team marked as fugitives. When they find out of this, Dom decides to lure him out in public so that they put a tracker on him. When Dom discovers Elena with his necklace, he infiltrates her home to take it back. Before he leaves, he shares his respect to her for understanding how much it meant to him. Unable to get fast enough cars to avoid being caught on camera, they steal four cop cars to come off invisible. Dom has a quarter mile race against Han, Brian and Rome where the winner gets an extra million dollars from their cut. He intentionally lets Brian win as a gift to his firstborn. Vince returns and regains Dom's trust after saving Mia from being captured by Zizi. One the day of the heist, Hobbs gets the jump on Dom, Brian, Mia and Vince just as the others leave to get things in motion. Dom almost kills Hobbs in a fight but Mia begs him to stop, resulting in them surrendering. Just as they are being transported, they get ambushed by Zizi and more henchmen. When Hobbs is the last man standing in his group, Elena frees the fugitives and they escape together. However, Vince got shot in the crossfire and would die from his wounds. When regrouping, Dom still wants to move forward, which worries everyone because Reyes knows they're coming. Hobbs volunteers to distract the police to set things in motion. When he and Elena have a standoff with every cop, Brian and Dom use two cars they spray painted in black to steal the vault, tethered with wires. As they escape, Rome and Han take down numerous cop cars to help them pass. As they reach a bridge, Dom releases Brian's wire from the vault so that he can live his life as a parent with Mia. He fends off against Reyes' army on his own. When he a does a 180 turn, the momentum of the vault causes the car to flip and just when he jumps out, it crashes into Reyes' car, injuring the antagonist who pursued him. Zizi barely escaped but Brian returns to shoot him before he could. Hobbs arrives at the scene and quickly shoots down Reyes. He chooses to give Dom and company 24 hours to leave Rio, only without the money. Dom and Brian agree to this, only because they swapped the vault with their duplicate. Hobbs does not realize this until they've already left. When Tej is able to open the vault, the team go their separate ways with their shares: Dom donates Vince's share to his family. Leo and Santos spend their money at Monte Carlo casinos. Han and Gisele begin a romantic relationship and decide to travel to Madrid, before considering Tokyo. While Rome chooses to live a luxury lifestyle, Tej opens up a garage but both bought 2010 Koenigsegg CCXR's. Brian and Mia now reside in Canary Islands with Dom, who's now romantically involved with Elena. As the film ends with Brian challenging his friend to one more race, we see a mid credit scene where Hobbs discovers Letty Ortiz to be alive and well, involved with robbing a military convoy in Berlin.
THOUGHTS
I recall getting the chance to rent this film in the fall of 2011 after finally catching up on the prior films. My opinion remains the same that this one is so damn fun. Director Justin Lin recreates the energy from the first film and raise the bar on being an exciting film, which is exactly what seeing movies are about. Switching the genre is very tough to pull off because it can backfire. So it was a relief seeing the street racing franchise flip into a heist film and pull off so well. There is at least one race, but it is the chase sequences and shootouts that get to shine here. While that is cool to watch, it is diverse ensemble that makes it all worthwhile. Leo and Santos didn't get to properly shine in their appearance of the fourth film, so it was a blessing to see them properly fleshed out here. Paul Walker and Vin Diesel arguably present their best chemistry together as Brian and Dom respectively because this time, their characters are finally on the same page after years of conflict. Brian is now able to enjoy his thrill seeking side while Dom is more selfless than ever, willing to sacrifice himself at moment's notice. I like that we don't see who won between them because we don't really need to. What matters at this point is that they will always have each other's back as brothers in arms. I believe Dom's quote "Running ain't freedom" is the best quote of the film because it accurately defines the general theme that there is no solution if you keep running from your problems. And that theme really drove him throughout the rest of the series. Jordana Brewster is good as Mia because she arguably becomes the matriarch of her family, due to her concern of those she loves. She embraces Dom's lifestyle, which made her more fearless than before. But after discovering her pregnancy, she knew she couldn't do what her brother does forever. So seeing her enjoy her new life at Canary Islands, you know she is relieved that the adrenaline is over (for now). Because Johnny Strong never returned as Leon, I was caught off guard seeing the return of Matt Schulze as Vince. He becomes a tragic figure here because it was his gullibility that resulted in the chain of events. Seeing that he made a family of his own, it comes to show that despite being the best friend you would hope for, he always had a heart. It is a shame that he died due to how he had just redeemed himself a day before. Since time flies fast, I wouldn't be surprised if Rosa and Nico were to ever return for whatever reason. Due to my soft spot for 2 Fast 2 Furious, I was satisfied to see the return of Tyrese and Ludacris as Rome and Tej. Seeing Rome's egocentric personality become a comedic aspect was a wise choice because it's hard to take the guy serious with that attitude. Tej being a hacker comes to show that there is more than meets the eye. I have respect for this character because he is as humble as the rest of the group he's with. He chose to open a garage because that is how much of a people person he is. Living as simple as that, it's hard to not respect that about him. I was pretty surprised to see Han and Gisele get together but overtime, I understood why they mesh so well. Gisele grew attraction to Han because she admired his nomadic nature. And he fell for her in return because of her own courage. The one thing they seem to have in common is how they can be witty in their own way. Having said that, I think Gal Gadot and Sung Kang had good chemistry. Tego Calderon and Don Omar were a match made in heaven as they played off each other so well as polar opposites. Tego displays Leo as who's positive on how things are gonna play out, whereas Omar shows off Santos as one who overthinks everything to a point where he comes off negative. Seeing that dynamic play out is always hilarious for me. As for the new characters, Hernan Reyes is another forgetful villain but in given time, Joaquim de Almelda does a good time embracing him to be a ruthless yet sophisticated figure. I have to admit that I laughed when the car hits him because he yells and does nothing. He could've jumped out like Zizi did, but was too dumb to do it. It's just too funny that his right hand man was smarter than him. Elsa Pataky was enjoyable as Elena because she maintained her morality despite losing her husband. She could've been another one on Reyes' accomplices, but that never crossed her mind no matter what. She ended up with Dom here clearly because they both related to losing loved ones. It was sensible for them to be a thing because they felt that they deserved a second chance of being happy. Of all new characters, the most welcome was Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson as Luke Hobbs. He was a force to be reckoned with because he was highly single minded and did not care about the whole story. When Dom saved his life, that part of him disappeared and he chose to see where he was coming from. Even though he can be a preemptive person, his new ideology revolving around "ends justifies the means" is what makes you respect him. This film will never stop being entertaining to watch, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t flaws throughout. First off, what the hell did Vince mean when saying ‘being on the other side of the wanted poster’? That shit made no sense. He could’ve said ‘other side of the law’ and I would’ve gotten it. It made sense for the other passengers to be unobservant, but how are the agents acting such as well? Brian and Mia have been on the news lately as much as Dom. So it’s weird how they don’t even notice. I mean they were so unobservant that they left their access card on their seats when realizing the heist. Also, why didn’t Zizi tell Dom a day in advance that he would get dibs on the GT40. I know the heist is supposed to mess up so that the plot could advance, but Zizi could’ve kept the dibs in advance and not on the day of the heist. I guess he needs to live to be the right hand man for Reyes, but Dom wasn’t smart to not throw him off the train. He did it to the other henchman, so there really is no other excuse to spare him other than plot convenience. If any pissed me off during the on foot chase was that we don’t see how the hell did Dom lose his necklace. I know this is supposed to set him up with Elena, but there wasn’t a single cut where it came off him. So they messed up continuity big time by not showing that. While it does sound wise for Reyes to hide all the money in one place, it would’ve been smarter to double security. If that happened, the group would’ve been outnumbered and it’d take them longer to figure out how to steal it. It is smart to have duplicate safe to practice cracking it before getting the real deal, but there’s a problem. Did the delivery service find it odd that they were delivering it at an abandoned warehouse. I mean that should’ve raised some kind of red flag to them if not Hobbs. I also thought it was weird how no one of his crew followed Reyes like he ordered because if one did, they would’ve spotted Han & Gisele and their plan to get the handprint would’ve been backfired. It is possible for two Dodge Chargers to pull a 10 ton vault, but not at the speed they were going because the weight of it would’ve slowed it down. I know it’s a cool sequence but this was where they started ignoring reality. However, I still think this film is a ball once you roll with it. To wrap up, Fast Five is an excellent action film because it shows that flipping the switch on the genre can work. If you enjoyed the prior four, this one will satisfy you as well.
Comments