MOVIE OF THE WEEK (4/29/11): FAST FIVE
Credit: Jaimie Trueblood. © 2011 Universal Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
KEY CAST MEMBERS: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordanna Brewster, Dwayne Johnson, Elsa Pataky, Sung Kang, Tego Calderón, Don Omar, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Tyrese Gibson, Gal Gadot, Matt Schulze, Michael Irby and Joaquim de Almeida
WRITER: Chris Morgan (screenplay), Gary Scott Thompson (characters)
DIRECTOR: Justin Lin
WEB SITE: www.fastfivemovie.com
THE PLOT: Beginning with an adrenaline-pumping road scene, Fast Five once again stars Vin Diesel as Dominic Toretto, an elite street racer/ex-convict anti-hero who is once again on the run along with Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker), former LAPD detective/FBI agent turned fellow street racer and his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) ... A.k.a. his sister/Paul's now pregnant girlfriend. After breaking Dom out of the clutches of the feds, the trio decides the time has come to stop living dangerously and take up a new life away from the watchful eye of the law ... Right after they pull one last dangerous job.
In Rio de Janero. As in Rio de Janero, Brazil.
Making their way to South America, the trio reunites with Vince (Matt Schultze), Dominic's childhood friend not seen since the original The Fast & The Furious, who now lives in the city's rough favelas (ghettos). He has a job which he is certain will be easy money - all they have to do is work with Zizi (Michael Irby) to pull it off. And of course, that doesn't go according to plan.
Fast-forwarding a bit, Dominic, Brian and Mia end up finding themselves on the wrong end of the temper of Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida), Zizi's boss, who just so happens to be the most powerful crime boss in all of Rio. And if that weren't bad enough, the trio also has someone else after them - Luke Hobbs (recent Wrestlemania participant Dwayne Johnson), a federal agent who's swagger and confidence is matched only by his muscles and one-liners. And with local police officer assistant Elena (Elsa Pataky) assisting him, the trio soon learns there's really not anywhere they can go in Rio without being recognized.
Not ones to go down without a fight, the crew (under Dominic's leadership) launches their most daring plan to date: Steal $100 million from Reyes while escaping Hobbs and his crew and getting out of town - and out of the hijacking/robbery business for good. But knowing they can't do it alone, Dominic and Brian call in a few favors in the forms of old friends Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges), Leo (Tego Calderón), Santos (Don Omar), Gisele (Gal Gadot) and Han (Sung Kang).
Ladies and gentlemen, get ready to start your engines ...
THE TAKE: Fast Five is almost too easy of a film to review ... And I saw that to say this: If you like the majority if not all of the F&F films, this movie will likely be the equivalent of Return of the Jedi as that film is to Star Wars fans.
Now, let's keep a few things in mind: [1] If you really come to a F&F movie for the acting - especially a movie starring Tyrese - you are at the wrong movie. [2] If you have difficulty turning off the logical part of your brain so that you can't ignore clichés, ridiculous one-liners and even more unbelievable action sequences, once again, you are at the wrong movie! If you come expecting adrenaline-pumping races, intense fights, balls-to-the-wall shootouts and jokes that are so corny they're almost genius, Fast Five is for you in a very big way. There's really not many more ways I can say it.
What Diesel (a.k.a. the tanner Sylvester Stallone), Walker (a.k.a. Keanu Reeves, the sequel) and Brewster (a.k.a. the Jennifer Aniston of the action movie circuit) may lack in acting chops, they makeup for it in chemistry; in Fast Five, that chemistry goes a long way. (It's kind of like the way two - or in this case, three - negatives equal a positive. Three bad actors acting badly together makes them good. Don't ask me to explain further because I can't.) Likewise, the chemistry shared among the tandems of Bridges and Gibson, Kang and Gadot and Calderón and Omar, especially is fairly entertaining, even if sometimes for all the wrong reasons. Not to be outdone, The Rock - sorry, I mean Johnson (old habits die hard)! - is actually kinda great as he embraces his role with an action movie level of cheesiness not seen since John McClaine was battling Hans Gruber in the late 1980s.
Throw in some racing sequences deliver exactly what you expect - intense action with more unbelievable circumstances and execution than nearly humanely possible - and Fast Five puts a (potentially?) nice little bow on this longstanding franchise.
PARTING SHOT: A film where believability takes a back seat to thrills and octane boosts, Fast Five delivers the adrenaline rush longstanding fans of the series will enjoy. If nothing else, it makes up for The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift (sorry Lucas Black)!
RATING (OUT OF FOUR POSSIBLE BUCKETS OF POPCORN):
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