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His breakdown of Vin Diesel is amazing. Sentient porkchop.
http://www.badassdigest.com/2011/04/29/movie-review-fast-five-is-the-gold-standard-in-silly-stunt-filled-summer-fun
Fast Five states its intentions right up front. Picking up the story from the last frames of Fast & Furious, Brian (Paul Walker) and Mia (Jordana Brewster) break Dom (Vin Diesel) out of a bus thats taking him to Lompoc Prison. Their method? Use their hot rods to flip the bus six or seven times, smashing it all to hell. News reports tell us the rest of the story Dom got away and no one else was hurt. WHAT?
If you can roll with that and I laughed and applauded at that then youre in for a hell of a ride. Especially because that scene is beautifully practical, almost a complete counterpoint to the flipping truck sequence that opened F&F. And indeed, all of Fast Five feels like a course correction from that huge misstep of a film. Its a movie stuffed with practical car stunts and brimming with the emptyheaded charm of the first two movies. Its an easy movie to like.
The story picks up some time after the escape. Mias knocked up, and she and Brian are in Rio, still on the run. Theyre way broke and they turn to Vince (Matt Schulze), Doms old best friend from the first film, to get them a job. On paper its easy (in ridiculous action movie terms) theyre to liberate cars from a moving train. But it turns out these cars are DEA property, and a local drug kingpin wants them too.
From there shit gets out of hand. The Feds think our heroes killed a trio of DEA officers and they send the wrath of God personified, Hobbes (The Rock), to find them. And our heroes end up with the one car that the powerful drug kingpin wanted and he sends waves upon waves of machine gun shooting thugs to get it back. It turns out that car includes a computer chip that details all of the kingpins money safehouses, creating a map to every dollar he has. So Dom comes up with a fool proof plan assemble a team and steal every cent from this cocksucker.
Each of the Fast and Furious movies has been its own weird take on a genre. The films have been essentially riffs on Point Break, The Karate Kid and Miami Vice. Now theyre going after Oceans 11, and it works remarkably well. The weird structure of the series each installment has had different headliners offers a deep bench of characters and actors, all of whom return for one last job (a line actually delivered by Diesel) and who bring their own sense of personality and fun. Where Fast & Furious spent half the movie trying to get Brian and Dom to the make up sex, Fast Five just throws all the characters into the mix by the end of the first act and shakes it up vigorously.
Which leads to my major complaint about the film: isnt this a series about cars? There are some amazing car action scenes here, including a barnstormer finale, but most of the film is made up of non-car business. Its hard to get too aggravated because all of the non-car business is great we get a Bourne-ish chase through the favelas, a Black Hawk Down-ish assault on an armored convoy, some fun and funny heist business. Justin Lin and his team of second unit experts bring it all in this film, and every action scene is a wonder.
Well, except one. And so we get to my second complaint (but give me this paragraph and then I gush again): the Vin Diesel/The Rock fight scene. Conceptually this is an incredible scene, set up well in the movie and in the pop culture. Youd like to see the two reigning bald action stars go head to head. And you still will after Fast Five, since the whole fucking fight is stunt men exchanging punches while digital shadows or blurs hide their faces. This isnt some kind of crazy Jackie Chan style fight, just a pretty straightforward brawl, and yet neither of the stars seem to be up for good old fashioned punch trading. The movie builds you up to this confrontation and then the stars essentially tag in their doubles. Disappointing.
But that brings us to The Rock, who is the central figure of fury who elevates this film from fun to a possible classic of summertime schlock. Sweating in every single frame of the film, Dwayne Johnson plays Hobbes as the ultimate badass, always clad in bulletproof armor, always growling some order or putdown, and always willing to unload bullets into an incapacitated mans cranium. This is the tough as nails, coldly murder a motherfucker version of The Rock that I thought we had lost to The Tooth Fairy, and its wonderful to see him back. How tough is Hobbes? He gets the films one MPAA-allowable fuck. The Rock really gets the tone of the series, and he plays to it perfectly, bringing just a little bit of that wrestling phoniness to the proceedings.
Hes certainly more than a match for Diesel, who continues to turn into some kind of Gnome King or something. His head seems to be shrinking while his nose blossoms out and the thin layer of flesh holding in the hamburger helper with which he is stuffed seems tired and about to give up the ghost. All of Diesels lines sound like theyre coming through some kind of bass-heavy fuzzbox and the choices he makes in delivering them are baffling. I dont know what kind of a movie he thinks hes making. Still, as awful as he is on paper hes arresting on screen, a sentient pork chop that occasionally drives cars. This is the ultimate niche for him, and hopefully he understands it. He is Dom, and Dom is he.
Walker, meanwhile, has aged into something respectable. Hes torn here; in the Diesel-starring films hes the ultimate beta male, just hoping to get a sniff of Doms urine, but in 2 Fast hes part of a buddy cop relationship. This film brings both together, and Walker must plod around after Dom like the obedient bitch while also giving Tyrese plenty of shit something that puts Tyreses Roman way down on the male totem pole. Still, Walker has become grizzled with age and now that hes lost the baby face hes sort of believable as a wiry criminal.
The rest of the cast supports to perfection; Tyrese remains hilarious (bringing back his hongry catch phrase from 2 Fast), while Brewster almost gets a shot at being in the action. Shes looking almost dangerously skinny here, which is too bad because she had much more of a real girl appeal in the first film. As a girl she gets sidelined into being the human GPS system (basically shes Tank from The Matrix).
Thats a sight better than the gorgeous Gal Gadot, whose part in the entire film is to literally have a man grab her ass. She returns from Fast & Furious, but for almost no reason. She had no character there, and shes all but presented as a new character here. Theres another female in the film, the stunning Elsa Pataky, who plays the only cop in Rio who isnt corrupt. She ALMOST gets to be an action heroine, but then the movie condescendingly takes her out of the action again and again, often to be protected by big sweaty men.
This would all be offensive if it wasnt for the fact that the homoeroticism is thicker than The Rocks biceps. These men barely even note the sexuality of the women around them; the film is set in Rio, one of the most notoriously sensual cities in the world, and the level of sexuality in the film still hovers right around non-existent. Its kind of amazing that this franchise can simply keep ignoring women; even the sexy lady shots in the film feel completely perfunctory. While the story tries to set up Dom and Patakys lady cop as a couple, the reality is that the whole thing is a mating dance between Dom and Hobbes. The film treats women the way a closeted gay man does, cat-calling Oooh baby, nice ass! And nice shoes!
Lets get back to the characters and the actors Han. Played by Sung Kang in two previous films, this is the characters shining moment. He may have been Obi Wan Kenobi in Tokyo Drift but hes James Bond here. I just loved Han in Fast Five, and hes the only character whose reaction to a woman felt real. Why isnt Sung Kang in more films? Hes got such a cool screen presence. Id actually love Fast Six to team him up with The Rock; the fire and ice pairing would be better than the continued clash of muscleheads Im sure well see with Hobbes and Dom.
The film treats these characters well; theyre not particularly nuanced or deep but theyre fun, and they have fun together. Its like the Oceans films in that way the fun theyre having comes off screen and we have fun with them. Theres a lot of adorably stupid banter (although Tyrese really does get some truly hilarious zingers in), and a lot of futzing around, all of which is welcome because you love this team. Its car movie as hangout film.
Director Justin Lin and writer Chris Morgan know exactly how to balance that with the action scenes. The action punctuates at just the right times, never getting exhausting and never allowing the non-action scenes to dominate too much. And each action scene is perfectly paced, giving you the beats you crave and never overstaying their welcome. The final, spectacular chase almost gets to be boring but then Lin throws in new elements that refresh it.
The real stars of Fast Five are the stunt men and women who did all the incredible action we see on screen. Its so satisfying seeing real cars smashed to pieces or hurtled over cliffs. Its amazing to watch real people in dangerous situations. There are CGI elements the vault that is being improbably dragged behind two cars in the final chase, for instance and there are inserts of the lead actors or faces mapped onto real stunt people, but the majority of what you see on screen in Fast Five is good old fashioned practical work, people doing the physics, taking the chances and earning the bruises. Lets hope that this film reminds the rest of Hollywood that we would much rather see a real person jumping off a cliff rather than a digitized wire frame person.
I wont lie I loved this movie. Morgan and Lin know what theyre making, and they dont repeat the mistakes of Fast & Furious. They keep it light, fun and well-paced. They up the ante in just the right way with Hobbes while using the franchises best assets its secondary characters to keep things buoyant. And Lin and his second unit have crafted the greatest action scenes in the franchises history as well as some of the best big screen action Ive seen in years. This is what a summer movie should be knowingly silly, fun, light, thrilling, packed with real stunts and not-so-subtle gayness. And best of all you never have to turn your brain off half the fun is laughing along with the audacious goofiness of the whole thing.
Fast Five gives the franchise new blood. Its not a real movie like Tokyo Drift, but its the biggest and the most fun, and I cant wait to see where they take the series next especially after the completely bonkers post-credits reveal. -------------------------------
A lot of you players ain't okay.
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