I’m not a car guy — if I acquired super-speed I’d be happy never to drive a car again — but last year I decided to work through the Fast and Furious film franchise. More than anything else, I was curious. Lots of action films aspiring to franchise status have crashed and burned, so what made this one so successful? Eight films, ninth out this year (it would have been last year but for the pandemic), and one spinoff, Hobbs and Shaw. That’s an accomplishment.
Alas, after viewing eight of them — I finished up 2017’s The Fate of the Furious last month — I don’t have any penetrating insights to offer. I do think it’s significant that doing a soft reboot from street racing to over-the-top action hasn’t hurt the series. Changing direction often kills a franchise but not this time.
2001’s The Fast and the Furious has the LAPD’s Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker) getting involved in Dominic Toretto’s (Vin Diesel) illegal street races, and with Dom’s sister Mia (Jordana Brewster). What the Torettos and Dom’s lover Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) don’t know is that Brian’s an undercover cop out to bust Dom for some highway robberies. Trouble is, Brian’s bonding with Dom and really wants to bond with Mia, if you know what I mean (if you don’t know, think for a while. It’ll come to you). Can he turn on them when the time comes? Well, sort of: at the end of the film he shuts down the crime ring but lets Dom walk away.
I can’t say this one grabbed me, but I can see why it did well. The film has hot women wearing very little, fast cars going vrooom and conflicts between bromance and duty, all time-tested crowd-pleasing elements. It has a lot in common with biker-sploitation films of my tween years, though it’s slicker, more entertaining, and has a much better cast.
Brian is the only character to return in 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003). Having lost his badge for letting Dom go, Brian and his friend Roman (Tyrese Gibson) wind up competing in some more street races, this time in Miami. The prize is a high-paying gig delivering money for a drug kingpin — but Brian and Roman are actually working for the cops. So is Fuentes (Eva Mendes), a federal agent inside the drug ring … or is she double-crossing them? In point of fact, everyone in the cast has a hidden agenda, which makes it hard to figure out who’s going to sell out whom. I enjoyed this more than the first film (John Singleton’s direction didn’t hurt), though I’m in a minority.
None of the original cast wanted to come back for the next film so Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) introduces Sean (Lucas Black), a teen rebel who gets shipped to his uncle in Tokyo for shaping up. While there he becomes involved in drift racing, which means more cool cars and sexy, scantily clad Japanese women. There’s also love and a crime angle, as Sean and his friend Han (Sung Kang) become involved with some Yakuza lowlifes. Plus at least one line I liked (“Your bookkeeping is incomprehensible, but even I can figure out your partner is stealing from you.”). It performed poorly compared to the first two films but it kept the franchise going.
In 2009, Fast and Furious reunited Dom, Mia and Brian to get revenge for the death of Letty. Inspired by Brian, Letty had turned cop and gone undercover in a drug ring, only to be exposed and killed. Brian and Dom, helped by Han from Tokyo Drift (Han died in that film so IV, V and VI are prequels [he’s back in IX, but I don’t know how]) set out to take the drug kingpin down. Mia mostly stays at home and wrings her hands at all the risks her men are taking. This film begins the transition away from street-racing and into crimefighting, though it’s too conventional an action film for me. In terms of the core relationship, it reunites Brian and the Torettos and introduces Gal Gadot as Gisele, who shows interest in Dom but winds up with Han later in the series.
Fast Five (2011) is the real game-changer. There’s only one brief scene of street-racing and scantily clad women, and the race itself takes place off-camera. Subsequent films likewise squeeze in one race to tie the series to its roots, but that’s no longer the focus.
Following directly from the ending in IV, Mia and Brian bust Dom out of prison, then relocate to Rio [corrected — I originally had Brasilia]. Enter Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), a tough-as-nails federal agent, out to bring them down with the help local cop Elena (Elsa Pataky). Worse, our heroes have pissed off a Brazilian crimelord, who has the city police force in his pocket. How to solve things? Simple — steal enough of the crimelord’s cash that they can retire to places with no extradition treaties.
After their first couple of raids, the crimelord counters by stashing his money in an impregnable vault at police headquarters. Not a problem: in the climactic car chase Dom’s crew literally tear the vault out of the police building and drag it behind them through the streets. It’s absurd as only a fun action film can be absurd (“This just went from Mission Impossible to Mission In-Freaking-Sanity!”) and it works. The film ends with everyone in a happy place — Mia and Brian married with a baby, Dom pairing off with Elena — although a sequel was already in the works. I’ll be posting about the remaining films on Thursday.
#SFWApro.
In the fifth one, they’re in Rio, not Brasilia.
Thanks. Edited to correct that.
I watched the first movie when it was released and had no desire to sit through any more.
Pretty much what I expect from Hollywood these days, loud and crass.
The series didn’t really register on my consciousness until the ads for Fate of the Furious (covered in Thursday’s post) showed Charlize Theron as a comic-book class computer villain who can take over dozens of cars by hacking their software. Then when I realized how many movies they’d made, I got curious.
If you haven’t already, you need to listen to the Radio vs. the Martians episode in which they cover the Fast & Furious movies. It’s so much fun to listen to, even though I don’t share their enthusiasm for the movies.
Before listening to that show, I’d previously watched part of the first one on TV and it didn’t hold my interest. Afterward, I saw part of Tokyo Drift and part of another one – can’t remember which but The Rock was in it – and again maybe the first half hour or so of the first one, and I still can’t say I’m really interested. However, I think I can understand the appeal and why they’re so popular.
Bookmarked the podcast for later, thanks.
All y’all hoity-toity wine-sniffers are cray-cray. These movies are so incredibly wonderful partly because they’re so incredibly gonzo stupid. THERE’S A CHASE WITH A TANK ON A FREEWAY!!!! THEY JUMP CARS BETWEEN SKYSCRAPERS!!!!! THE FIGHT BETWEEN DIESEL AND THE STATH DESTROYS A BUILDING!!!!!! THERE’S A CAR WITH 3-D HULK HANDS!!!!!! ALL THE WOMEN ARE INEXPLICABLY SUPER-HOT!!!!! You’re just missing out if you don’t love every second of these movies.
Having gotten back to movie theaters after some time away, I can say that the sheer spectacle of having this crazy ass shit happening on a big screen with a whole bunch of other people watching and ooohing at the same time has got to be a big factor in the appeal of these movies. I suspect just watching them home alone, no matter how big your TV screen is, just doesn’t have the same effect.
Interestingly, GQ just had an “In Defense of John Singleton’s 2 Fast 2 Furious” article go up the other day. And I used to know how to put the link within the text of my comment, I thought, but instead: https://www.gq.com/story/fast-and-furious-in-defense-of-most-hated-movie
Yes I don’t doubt you’re right about the theatrical experience.
I’m surprised 2 Fast 2 Furious ranks lower than Tokyo Drift, but that article nails a lot of why I like the Singleton film.
The closest I got to this franchise was the premiere of its cousin, ‘Need for Speed’, the most unnecessary movie of the last several years.
https://geekdad.com/2014/03/parents-need-for-speed/
Never even heard of that one. But between a spouse who doesn’t like to go to the movies and the rising prices I don’t get out and see Coming Soon posters at the local cinema as much as I used to.
The first “Fast and the Furious” has long been my go-to film for the minimum amount of quality that any movie should have. As in like, “That movie was terrible and didn’t even even get to Fast and the Furious-levels of story and character development.”
I’ve never seen movies 2-6, but came on board for both 7 and 8 (one on a plane and the other on a day off when I was overseas). Both incredibly stupid but mindlessly fun, and 7 pulled off a surprisingly tender tribute to Paul Walker in the midst of all the nonsense.
Ben: 5 is pretty much by far the best one. If you thought 7 and 8 were stupid mindless fun, 5 turns that up even more.
Five and Six (which I get to next post) are probably my favorites.
Tokyo Drift is the best movie ever made!
Seriously, it is so ridiculous that it is fun. Too bad Lucas Black seems to have turned super Jesusy-anti-vax-anti-covid-restrictions.