On Loving The FAST & FURII: A Retrospective (Patreon)

I just realized I’ve never really written about these movies.

Which is funny because I love these movies. They are the exact right mix of fun, earnest, dumb, shrewd, weird, recursive, straight-forward, and chock full of irrational confidence. They’re ten of the most improbable movies ever, all filled with comforting similarities and critical differences that can cause the best kind of favoritism and discussion within the ranks of its fandom. A fandom which keeps growing! Because every time a new one comes out I feel like I am going back and to re-watch them with someone who has never seen them before. Which means you get the joy of watching THEM discover all the unexpected delights of this impossibly fun movie series that we’ve been loving for two decades now. But that’s the thing, we all have a seemingly personal diary with these movies.

This one is mine.

THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS (2001)

I have such a vivid memory of the release of this film. It was a languid summer back in my hometown, waiting for college to start again. It was this feeling of being completely displaced, as if still caught between new and old worlds. I went to see it at the local megaplex and something weird happened: everyone from my hometown - and I mean seemingly everyone - was there. This was odd! You see, I’d spent so much of life going to this exact theater with my best friend Matt. We saw everything together. Every Friday we’d just go and see whatever was coming out. And only sometimes would we run into groups of kids we knew from school, often for a few event teen-centric movies that catered to them (Adam Sandler and Scream movies seemed the big draw). But in all that time, I never saw all the casual goers there at once for the release of a movie. Just NEVER. That is until The Fast and The Furious.

It was then that I realized that this movie 1) hit an intersection of my town’s rather popular car culture and 2) that car culture had been waiting for a movie like this for some time.

It was a group perhaps best represented by these two twin dudes who went to my high school and were just obsessed with cars ever since they were little. Seriously, it was always their dream to open their own shop. They knew everything about cars before they even got their licenses. I mean, one time on the way to a track meet the bus broke down and they fixed the bus. And don’t worry, folks, not only did they get their dream and open their own shop, they now have their own racing league! I mention this because this movie was seemingly everything to them. Everyone in that crowd absolutely loved it. Afterward, I remember there were all these conversations about cars and all sorts of car-related proper nouns that I had no idea about. You could sense this crackling feeling of something being tapped into (which is why the film was a surprise monster hit). There was ALWAYS an audience for this series… their movie had just finally come out to prove it.

What’s funny is that the movie itself is almost more enjoyable in retrospect. It’s a perfect time capsule of the early 2000’s, specifically in terms of fashion. We’re talking about the dawn of Ed Hardy, with Vans and cargo shorts galore. It’s also the age of platform boots, staggering midriffs, and, uh, those two little hair strands that come down across one’s face? Not sure what to call it, but with every passing year the stylization of this film gets more enjoyable. And it’s an awesome LA time capsule movie, too. Specifically for bygone Echo Park and K-town areas that quickly got gentrified and reshaped by condos. Still, it’s one of those location-heavy movies that makes it so much fun to watch and try to identify every single street that now feels so familiar. Admittedly, such bits of enjoyment are rather surface level. But luckily, there’s a real movie underneath that, too.

No, really. There is. I know it’s genuinely hard to believe this film spawned a 10 film action saga - what with the relatively low-stakes criminal exploits of stealing DVD players and such - but as much as quaint as that seems, there were so many little important things that this film set in stone. From the silly: like Coronas and the fact all truck drivers are absolutely willing to fight to the death for their hauls - to the thematic: like family and living life a quarter mile at a time. But there’s one hugely important core story thing that genuinely works each every single time I see it: the central relationship between Dom and Brian.

It’s the foundation of everything. Because you genuinely have to believe the emotional moments between them for the story to even have a chance at working. And it absolutely delivers on that. I remember one person at the time trying to justify why they weren’t seeing it and saying “it’s just point break with cars,” but I’m like “yeah, that sounds amazing.” While it doesn’t live up to Bigelow’s achingly romantic bro masterpiece (and what can), it still absolutely captures that aching sincerity of friendship and appreciation between two male leads. Which allows for genuine moments of tension at the end to play as sincere heartbreak in all directions. And honestly? So much of what makes it all work is that Vin Diesel was a proper revelation in this. It’s easy to forget now (given how stoic and mumbly his performance as Dom has gotten), but this is the proper dawn of a movie star. And every time I come back to this film I love seeing him young, hungry, and earnest as hell in this. He works so they work. And the film works because they work.

And the next entry was sadly going to have to do without Dom…

2 FAST 2 FURIOUS (2003)

I feel like this movie has spent too much time as an unfortunate punchline. Perhaps the title invites it (I genuinely can’t believe they called it that), but it has all the surface-level markings of a half-hearted sequel, starting with the fact Vin Diesel didn’t come back. But it’s more than that. The tone feels alternatively sillier and yet darker at the weirdest points (the rat scene!?!). It trades in Los Angeles for sun-drenched and sweaty Florida, aching in over-saturated neon clothing of the early-to-mid-2000s. Speaking of which, Paul Walker’s long shorts and baggy t-shirt combo remains maybe my ironic favorite for a main actor’s ensemble. But there’s plenty of unironic appreciation, too. I like some of the races and Cole Hauser makes for a properly smarmy shit bag. But for all the pomp and circumstance, I feel most people don’t realize what makes this film truly SPECIAL.

Believe it or not, I think this is one of the greatest gay subtext movies ever made.

No, really. I mean that. And don’t want the discussion to come off as flippant or reductive. I have nothing but absolute love and appreciation for it. Fuck, I’ll even throw my queer card right on the fucking table for adoration of this reading if it comes to that. Now, is it an intentional choice? No. Does it feel like the inverse byproduct of a toxic male culture and maybe even repression? Perhaps! All I know is that Brian and Roman 100% read as ex lovers. It’s in every look, angle, facial reaction, and decision. They even wrestle in the dirt like they’re doin’ it. Why? Well, Roman’s is furious Brian went off and “became a cop” (read: went straight) and left the lifestyle behind. You may think I’m exaggerating, but seriously, go rewatch it. Every line is like, “I got something for your ass!” and Roman constantly gets furious at Brian for looking at other women / Eva Mendes (while rarely doing it himself). Like you’ll watch with this context in mind and realize, there’s almost no other way to interpret it? Roman’s just seems the most possessive ex lover in history. It genuinely reads so much more clearly than whatever you’re thinking in your head.

At the same exact time, I want to note that this is a super complicated discussion! One that even came to a head recently with the MCU trying to play off the habit of fans queer-coding of their films. Because on one hand, interpreting the queerness of onscreen characters is what allows those audiences to see themselves represented in fiction in a way that they wouldn’t be otherwise. There’s genuine power and earnestness there. At the same time, I want to be careful because automatically interpreting relationships like the Brian / Roman above as queer can be also reinforce toxic masculinity as being part of an “all or nothing” sexual binary. It’s like, “oh one guy’s jealous of the other tHeY mUsT bE gAy,” which can often just stoke the very fires of toxic stoicism.

And yet, that’s another complicated thing because it cuts both ways! Because in one way it just placates the fears of those who are absolutely terrified for being seen as gay for any reason, but let me fucking remind you that that onus shouldn’t be on queer people to “keep their gay away from straights.” Moreover, it misses the two-pronged goal. Which is to 1) normalize queer interpretations and not care if something you like is codified as such and 2) it’s important to show emotional friendships and intimacy between men REGARDLESS of queer / non-straight sexuality, just as it is not defining their entire personhood by hetero relationships. The intimacy of BOTH is the point. Because if you’re not encouraging that understanding? You happily breathe in the toxicity of something like, say, Entourage, which is about four dudes who only want to be around each other all the time and treat the women in their lives as nags and disposable also-rans. It’s so exceedingly a product of all kinds of emotional repression (after all, the only moment tension ever showed up in that show is when two dudes balls almost touched and I’m not kidding). The goal of all these things is healthy normalcy.

… That’s probably not the conversation you were thinking you’d get with 2 Fast 2 Furious, but again, that’s what makes it special. And without it, the film is just a disjointed, but still surprisingly effective undercover crime movie with blips and boops that work and don’t. But there’s also no denying the discernible gifts it ultimately gave to the series in Ludacris and Tyrese coming into the eventual fold. But as far as these weird semi-connected sequels go? The next was even more disconnected from the original, and yet somehow even more critical to the ongoing series…

THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT (2006)

Ah, the first actually great movie in the series!

To be clear, I think all of them are good for the most part, but I genuinely don’t understand when people have any sort of slight against this one. It’s tightly plotted for once. It’s characterization is sharp. It’s plot games are fun as hell. Plus, it has the great distinction of being the only “true racing movie” of the entire series. Admittedly, I can understand that the biggest problem for many might be the lead, one Lucas Black. You get these little flashes of what the filmmakers perhaps saw in him, with those bits of wry smile and a likable southern drawl. But it keeps crashing against the wall of limitation. Not just because Black reads way, way too old for the part, but also these crucial moments where the charisma falls a little flat (P.S. Channing Tatum almost got this role and who knows what could have happened if that was the case? I mean, my word). But that discussion is so much less important - because what Tokyo Drift ultimately gives us is three fold.

The first is how the series found it’s main director in Justin Lin (previously responsible for “Modern Warfare” AKA the greatest episode of Community). That’s because he’s a director who has a masterful sense of kinetic energy, playfulness, and how to actually manufacture some dramatic tension in these car sequences. Seriously. I was with someone watching it for the first time and they would physically cower and hide as they thought his car was going to run into a pedestrian or hit a wall. That’s the shit you can’t fake. And Lin brought the exact visual coherence that would make the rest of the series work like gangbusters. Even with this particular film, Lin showed a specific understanding of how to come at the Tokyo setting with nothing but delighted reverence. After all, we’re used to so many western films being, like “this place is so weird!” But from moment one it’s like “No, Tokyo is fucking awesome.” Even when Bow Wow makes a dated “don’t ask, don’t tell” joke about what’s in the food, notice every time he actually likes the food (because it’s amazing). But that reverence isn’t just limited to its setting, but also its characters. It finds a wonderfully punchable villain in Brian Tee. It treats the great Sonny Chiba like the legend he is. And of course, it gave us another true gift…

Because the second major thing Tokyo Drift gives us is Han, who is hands down my favorite character in this entire series. And that’s because Sung Kang might be the most effortlessly cool person on the planet? Like, we know this by now, but also it has to be shouted to the rooftops forever and ever. He’s so somehow perfectly unflappable and yet happy to have really flappable moments where lets his guard down. He’s stoic yet humane. Funny but understated. Deadpan but soft. He can carry a moment with both weight and ease. I genuinely have no idea how he hasn’t taken the world by storm and become, like, a better James Bond or something? And if you’ve never seen it, Justin Lin’s breakout film BETTER LUCK TOMORROW (2002) is absolutely considered the unofficial Han prequel (really, he plays OG Han).

Lastly, the third thing Tokyo Drift gave us is a cameo… I remember the moment Dom Torretto showed up at the end it utterly brought the house down. Moreover, it incepted the audience with an idea… an improbable return of the original stars… a silly dream of things to come…

FAST AND FURIOUS (2009)

I can’t believe they called it this? Like, they just took out the “thes” and any form of sequel connection? I feel like there had to be a legal reason. Anyway, it’s weird to say the fourth entry is “the real start” of a film series, but there’s an inescapable way that that is true for this one (to be fair, you could say the same exact thing about the fifth film). But this movie’s very existence feels a small miracle because both Vin Diesel and Paul Walker are somehow back to the series they started, now with director Justin Lin in tow. More importantly, it was a monster hit that allowed them to keep making better efforts in the future. But these discussions are both meta and circumstantial in comparison to the discussion of the film itself.

Which I always regard it as the “worst” one - but on every rewatch I remember that I’m always a little hard on it, too. The opening heist is fun. Plus, it’s also the first film that starts turning Dom from charismatic street criminal into a ridiculous superhero figure. I mean, the part where he sherlocks a crime scene based on tire treads? The part where he grabs the engine block as it’s about to hit the mechanic’s head? These moments are cackle-inducing delights. Same goes for the way the film has a few gnarly kills and some great stunt work. But most of all, it reflects one of the other reasons these films are so damn resonant with general audiences… They look like the world.

Vin Diesel has been a not-entirely-quiet champion of greater representation for awhile now, but it seems that few people realize he got his real start in this industry with a 1995 short he made called Multi-Facial which is about the difficulty of having a “confusing” ethnicity to casting agents, especially one you can’t even explain your actual background to them (which is illegal to ask by the way). Vin never met his father and all he knows is that he was a person of color. But in the short film you see him having to fit into all these stereotypes and how much it crushes the notion of being an individual. While that may seem obvious now, in the 90’s it was a fairly radical conversation around American society’s fears over a growing “mixed” culture. And now that Diesel is producing on the series along with Lin directing, you see the progression of how these films start looking more looking like the spectrum of the world - even if that spectrum is mostly relegated to the opening heist in this film (also, let us acknowledge that these films super heteronormative, christian-centric, etc).

Now, I know all this sounds wonderful, but the biggest obstacle to Fast 4’s success is a tonal dissonance with its most likable qualities. Meaning the film spends way, way too much time being either too maudlin, too overwrought or too serious. There’s a morose darkness over so much, even including the cgi-heavy cave chases. Plus, there’s completely tone deaf moments like the unearned moment of Brian and Mia kissing then immediately having sex in the kitchen (just like one second after Brian was in the garage with Dom?). Even trying to put the “ex lovers” reading on Dom and Brian makes it all feel too angsty instead of fun. In essence, Fast 4’s big problem is not so much a failure of basic execution (though it certainly has boring stretches), but more just aiming the series in the wrong direction. But thankfully this poor aim helped establish the other lovely habit of this series…

The Fast movies will usually coursecorrect from errors…

FAST FIVE (2011)

Ah, it’s always wonderful to see a movie figure it out.

Fast Five does it almost on every front, too, starting with the tonal correction. While the last entry skewed so often into the dour, this one opts for more fun whenever it can. Starting with the lovely “getting the gang back together” vibes throughout the entire cast. It’s as if they took a look at ALL the characters throughout the series and picked the best pieces. Starting with the easy as heck decision to bring back Han. Again he’s the fan favorite and most chill operator on the planet. But the coup is going back for Tyrese and Ludacris, who have a fun rivalry and sense of competition in their interplay, which drives the energy. They also pull back a pre-Wonder Woman Gal Gadot. Mia, even if she’s sadly relegated to a Madonna figure, at least isn’t shoved to the sidelines but instead a central part of the movie. They even bring back the Spanish-speaking duo of Tego Calderon and Don Omar. These decisions are not only inclusive and makes for a great multi-cultural cast, it’s something that gives weight to the earlier movies in retrospect (especially the decision to also bring back FF1’s Matt Schulze as Vince). It’s a way of saying “all this actually mattered.” And more importantly, it will continue to matter going forward.

But there’s perhaps no more important decision than the new inclusion of Mr. Dwayne The Rock Johnson. I feel like people forget how much this performance changed the trajectory of his career. Everyone knew he had talent, but prior to this? He was alternating between bit parts in comedies, Disney kid fare, and the occasional B actioner. But with Hobbes we finally got the right characterization that fueled so much of his success to follow. Moreover, his presence helps solve the villain problem of the last movie. Because rather than getting all of your conflict from the powerful drug dealer heavy, you get the added pleasure of “fun bad guy” in the mix. Because he’s not really even a bad guy at all. More an adversary who provides the “third heat” of pressure in the movie and makes it feel like the conflict is coming from all sides. All before cresting into a fun little team-up which will become the rest of the series’ calling card.

It also speaks to the barebones functionalism that really makes this film (and the series going forward) really work. To wit, I don’t think there isn’t a single line exchange I’d put out there as an example of “amazing dialogue,” but it understands not just that we like these people, but how we like them. It knows who they are. And then it proceeds to let them have fun. Really we are talking about the benefits of knowing your exact identity. Which is why switching to the full-movie heist format works so much better. It even knows how to pull so many fun little baits and switches and smaller con jobs that add up to a fun build to the climax.

Do certain decisions ever end up making much sense? Nope! But it knows which ones matter and which don’t. It’s like they got little detail right this time. From cutting Paul Walker’s shiny platinum blonde curls and letting his rugged natural looks shine, to its magnificent use of the Rio setting and the Favelas, to the endless car destruction that fuels the vault-towing finale. For a fifth entry, it’s weird to say there’s a sense of “discovery” in this movie (especially given how much attention it pays to the past), but there is, dammit. It’s a sense of discovering how these films really can go from a solid action franchise to the most unlikely bigass blockbusters in Hollywood. This movie is the rightful cornerstone of the back half of the series.

And I’m so happy it exists.

FAST & FURIOUS 6 (2013)

Ahhhhh, the sequel-as-victory-lap.

Where Fast Five unquestionably had the essence of joyful discovery, the sixth entry is all about recapturing the magic. Same team. Same dynamics. Same sense of fun. It’s normally a fool’s errand, but the film is also more of an evolution than it gets credit for. It marks their evolution from heisters to full on government super spies - albeit in a way that’s fun because it actually makes them feel out of their league. I specifically like the fun turn of them taking on a rival heist team of their “evil twins,” which they call out directly. And for all the joy of discovery, there are benefits with knowing what you are. Meaning the jokes are funnier, the dynamics cleaner, and the story is leaner. Roman even rightfully  cements his place as the team’s punching bag. And the story has a surprisingly solid emotional anchor to boot.

Yes, the series always had a penchant for the melodramatic, but we go full soap opera here with Michelle Rodriguez’s amnesia plot-line. And Dom having to woo her back with all his Dom like decency (what’s funny is that I literally forgot she technically doesn’t get her memory back by the movies end with the “double bonk,” which I think is something it deserves credit for, especially for how it gets resolved in the next). But the fact it plays this entire sequence earnestly, with nary a wink, speaks to the heart of the series. It treats Dom like gravity, but never skimps on the work to get a character there. We see the moments, we see the evolution, we see the ways he demonstrates his validity. Yes, he’s inescapable. Yes, it’s often corny. But the script always tries to be sure the change is earned in the text itself and that distinction is EVERYTHING when it comes to the baseline function of your story.

The thing about Fast and Furious 6 is that it’s always the one I always forget the most of - and yet always enjoy more than I think upon rewatch, perhaps for the very same reason. Even though it has a genuine character death (granted, Gisele never got the range of Wonder Woman) it’s the entry that comes closest to a fun lark. Which is probably why the moments most people seem to remember are the delightful bits of absurdity, like a plane ejaculating a car after traveling on the world’s longest runway. These trivial aspects don’t matter because the sequence itself is terrifically fun. But it all comes with the admittance that the scene most people definitely remember was actually the post credit sequence, wherein Jason Statham shows up out of nowhere and is revealed to be the one who murdered our dear Han.

That’s a hell of a way to get me to hate someone.

FURIOUS 7 (2015)

In so many ways, this feels like the spiritual end of the series.

But what else could it be? Everything about the film was shaped by Paul Walker’s sudden death, which occurred halfway through filming. The devastating emotional cost of which cannot be understated. But the problem with filmmaking is that there’s all sorts of logistical concerns that follow in the wake of something like this. For these are the sorts of tragedies that usually end a production all together. Because movies are filmed in chaotic, evasive order, especially at this scale. Who knows what really had to go on, but whether it was Paul Walker’s brothers stepping into his CGI shoes or the reconfiguring of the plotting, the end result of Furious 7 can’t help but feel like a miracle of production and purpose.

What’s more is that Walker’s death can’t help but add weight to everything we see. Not just because we know we’re seeing his last performance. But because there’s a kind of inherent meta tension as we wonder how they are going to handle his character. Will he die? Would they do something so crass or play to the sense of tragedy? We worry because we implicitly understand this could break any which way at any point. But ultimately, the meta tension just leads to a truly elated goodbye, one that is unquestionably the series’ emotional apex.

But it comes with admittance that so much of the movie leading up to that ending is… a bit wonky. Make no mistake, the film has so many fun high points. The car skydiving and mountainside Ramsey-heist is a delightful romp with moments of genuine tension (especially in the Bus). The Dubai car heist is hilariously over the top, but also allows our muscle bound meat heads to dress to the nines. And for all the plate-spinning absurdity of the downtown LA sequence which devolves into cars vs. chopper / drone battle, how can you not enjoy a scene where The Rock flexes off a cast?

The real problem is the recursive plotting. Who knows what was supposed to happen originally - but on paper, it’s a film that’s supposed to be about avenging Han and the elaborate showdown with Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw - but instead it makes them BOTH of them get lost in a whole other plot-line of Kurt Russel’s shadowy spy wars and Djimon Hounsou’s wrath as they chase “The God’s Eye” an uber powerful surveillance tech. It is ostensibly the very thing that both sides are supposed to be fighting over, in order to find each other? And yet they keep finding each other anyway and fighting to get the advantage in… later finding each other? And even when obtained, it just proves to be not all that beneficial before it just becomes another world-saving mcguffin that gets punted around with a total lack of meaningful effect. Besides, THAT plot-line and infinitely more important to Djimon and newcomer Nathalie Emmanuel. Meanwhile, Dom’s entire wrench fight with Shaw is literally just “on the side.” The sad mark of a showdown movie that barely even has Statham talk (which he’s actually quite good at).

The wonky conflict aside, you can feel other differences with this entry. This is the first film since the 2 Fast 2 Furious to go without helmer Justin Lin, but James Wan does a fair enough job sticking to the Fast and Furious parlance. Though he does seem to like casting much of the film in shadow and darkness, with the occasional overlaid hue. But it’s also kind of fun seeing the horror chops come out in action sequences, which will make a given moment feel all the more dangerous or real. But again, credit to Wan for being responsible for a miracle of production. The fact this movie is functional AT ALL is a damn coup. And while all these differences add up in making a somewhat less successful “fast and furious movie” for much of the runtime they don’t end up mattering fuck all to the end result.

What could have been handled so egregiously instead crests into something genuinely beautiful. Hell, the immaculate vibes actually starts a scene earlier when the ongoing soap opera plot of Letty’s amnesia crests to the reveal of her remembering the two were actually married. And when asked why he never said anything, Dom, out of fucking nowhere says, “Because you can’t tell someone they love you.” Which is actually a beautifully observed line about the mature way of looking at reciprocation and understanding what we can’t control within our relationships. It’s a sudden, shocking bit of elegance that serves as transition to the film’s equally elegant goodbye sequence.

Reminder: elegant does not mean subtle (people seem to confuse that thanks to good old fashioned emotional repression!). But this is the series that was always unafraid to be clunky in its pursuit of the earnest - and it’s the latter that shines through in the note-perfect tribute for Paul Walker. Every single beat lands. The song. The quiet reverence on the beach. The family playing. The montage of old movies. Dom knowing you never have to say “goodbye” to someone so close to your heart. It’s the grace of the choice to let Brian go off and have a happy life, utterly symbolized by the car taking a different path in the road. And then it’s those two simple final words, “For Paul.”

It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it, the sequence sneaks up on me on every rewatch and lands with tear-inducing aplomb (which is especially the case when you are with others who haven’t seen it before and they get absolutely wrecked). With its utter lack of reservation, it’s perhaps one of the most fitting tributes to an actor / character who we perhaps didn’t realize that we loved as much as we did. Because by all accounts? Paul Walker was the genuine article. The kind of actor who knew how lucky he was to find a home in this kind of series. The kind of guy who was an eager workhorse on set. The kind of sweet guy who would be out buying jewelry and then secretly pay for couples buying their wedding rings and such. And did you know that Vin Diesel is the actual godfather to Paul’s daughter? And that Vin named his third daughter Pauline after him? For a movie series that loves to invoke the word family, the people behind it actually back that sentiment up through and through.

And that’s the whole secret of these films: they’re earnest beyond belief. For every bit of clunk, they mean every damn word of it. And when it came to the emotional heart of a loss that we rarely see in this town - they showed how much they truly cared for him - and how much he secretly gave us in turn.

I can think of no higher compliment.

FATE OF THE FURIOUS (2017)

How was it not called F8 of the Furious? I can’t believe they missed that one.

Anyway, coming off the loss of Walker, the series can’t help but find itself in an existential place of concern. I mean, after all these years of trying to figure out what to do with Dom and Brian’s relationship, there’s a sudden question of what do you do without him? How does this story move forward without the backbone of their friendship? It’s one of those things that may not be the focus of a given entry, but it was always the emotional rock that kept so much of this series grounded in people we cared about.

The truth is I actually didn’t see this one until this recent rewatch. I can’t even remember what it was that prevented me from seeing it, likely a combination of being busy that weekend and then watching as it utterly divided the fandom (which we’ll get to). But getting to watch it a few years later, I don’t find it to be some horrible misfire. It has moments of fun and levity and enjoyable ups and downs. But, really, it’s just the first one that 1) really shows all the symptoms of a series stretching past its seams and 2) misses on a few critical points of tonal execution that add up in an unfortunate way.

Let’s start with the stretching because you can feel the bloat. Which finally makes sense for a series that’s been in an arms race with itself. From car racing, to truck robbing criminals, to top-level heisters, to super spies, this is the one where Dom finally goes full James Bond (complete with loaded out spy car). There’s even nuclear subs and chases across the frozen ice of Russia. But beyond the production details, there’s an inescapable sheen to the look of this one, a bright shiny exterior that stands in contrast to the little critical bits of gritty from past entries. Perhaps a symptom of new to the series director F Gary Gray (who interestingly enough has directed Vin before (A Man Apart), The Rock (Be Cool) and Statham and Charlize, too (The Italian Job). But no matter how big and technological, there still were critical bits of realistic texture in the mix that helped with prior entries. And here - even if it still makes our characters outsiders who call out the absurdity of all this - for the first time it all really feels weightless. Which is something amplified by the fact the comedic scenes play a little more broad than ever before (even if some jokes deliver).

But the bloat of things exists in other ways too, specifically on the story level. It’s really important that we see Dom Toretto and his demonstrative gestures of respect and good-guy-ism (because it’s actually an important set-up). But here, the problem isn’t that it’s corny (even as crowds of children run to surround him), the problem is that it’s loooong. There’s so much dead time in this movie. Instead of acting on objectives and moving at pace, we spend countless scenes with characters all just waiting around for the next thing to happen. Which brings us to the core problems of the movie’s “big decision” for Dom to go rogue and be the bad guy. Now, I do not think this is a bad decision in and of itself. Because you want to see the fun parts of that conflict play with his family, like the moment all the other cars are chasing and putting the grappling hooks in his car. That stuff all works! What doesn’t is the fact the dramatic circumstances around it are off in ways both big and small.

For instance, we spend waaaaaaaay too much time with Dom on the other side of the team, which traps so much of the action in this stale, repetitive, and sad conflict - one that we as the audience know isn’t “real” because we KNOW Dom has his own motivation and yet can’t communicate that to Letty (not even a wink). So that means we just wait as Dom goes through the motions all stone-faced. Like, it's a crucial error in misunderstanding what we experience as an audience. Either we believe he’s bad or we don’t. And same goes for those other characters. So instead we get stuck in between, which means just waiting for it to be over. Just as we have wait in down-time scenes as Charlize just has to deliver these speeches to Dom of the same stakes again and again and again. Even during much of the action, Theron’s just relegated to barking orders from the plane at her computer team instead of being in the mix (and we have to talk about the blonde white lady dread choice?). And yes, the ending turns in the final minutes are fun enough I guess (we’ll come back to that), but we spend sooooo long waiting to get there. So no. It’s not the decision to make Dom bad. It’s the path of execution in making that badness happen. Essentially the problem is you’re watching so much conflict where you don’t exactly have a discernible rooting interest and the film truly suffers for it.

Which brings us to the other big decision, the utter softening of Deckard Shaw and “welcoming him into the family” and whether or not that’s deserved given his violent past / the fact he killed Han. Yes, we all know this is a series that is all about getting the “bad guys” to come be part of the team. It’s their established move. Dom is gravity. But as I said before, it can’t be obligatory. You have to still believe it. And that’s clearly gotten harder in a series that’s in that arms race with itself. With Shaw they had to make a bigger, badder villain that the audience could hate more than ever before, but then it also becomes harder and harder to walk that back in a way that works. Which is not to say it’s impossible.

The movie even makes it clear on HOW that works with the opening parable from Dom and the power to change someone (the car guy in Havana). It’s just that with Shaw it’s a little light on the change. It just feels a little too easy and a little too pat. And honestly, I think a lot of that feeling comes from the fact that it’s played way, way too late. Yes, that’s right! It’s the usual culprit of“surprise” being the worst screenwriting instinct instead of just showing us what we need along the way. Because that final plane scene of them cross-cutting between the action and the reveal scenes with Helen Mirren being his mom? Honestly, it’s too much to lay on at that point in the late third act. As fun as surprises can seem, that should have come earlier. Because if Shaw’s turn plays in motion of the middle movie it’s way WAY easier to buy into - and you don’t need to rush it into a backhand. Besides, it doesn’t even work as a surprise that well anyway (his brother Owen should have been surprise enough, along with the good timing of swooping in at a dramatic moment). And most of all, you can’t have that dinner finale without addressing the Han-ness and offering a sincere apology. Which means that for a series that thrives on being straight-forward and honoring the continuity of its past, Morgan and company finally got too cute by half by playing tricks and ignoring the history of what really matters.

And those things add up for an audience. I genuinely understand why some people watched and liked what happened with Shaw’s character at the end (it was fun) and the other half got up and arms. It wasn’t the choice itself. It’s that they were just a bit too obligatory and easy-going with it. But if you really care about these characters, that critical lack of earnestness is hard to get over. But for as much as I love this series, I also have trouble getting TRULY up in arms about decisions like this (don’t worry, I’ll save that for the next entry). Because for me, the function of this film’s choices isn’t all that far off. And for a movie that I whole-heartedly admit doesn’t work, I still have a soft-spot for its well-meaning intentions. Because I can’t help but smile at its ode to Havana car culture, its extended Hardboiled baby riff, and the fact it constantly shits on Scott Eastwood (you can practically feel them yelling YOU’LL NEVER BE BRIAN). It’s not a good Fast movie. But it’s still a Fast movie in its DNA.

Sadly, I can’t say the same for…

FAST AND FURIOUS PRESENTS: HOBBS AND SHAW (2019)

I don’t know if y’all know this but directing is kind of important!

That’s because it is a really hard, chaotic process where anything can happen. A situation where all the best laid plans on a page can be brought to life with the feeling of ecstatic truth or crash and burn like a deadening thud. Or, more worrisome to the suits, the kind of thing that can spin out of control so that days get missed and 400,000 grand a day goes up in smoke. Which is probably the main reason Hollywood continues to make safe choices by hiring the same semi-proven middlers again and again and again (who in the very least will “make their days”). But it’s always why they also gravitate to young directors that have sudden hits, as if utterly desperate for the new young maverick who has all the answers to their problems.

I mention this because John Wick came out in 2014 and there was all this heat on these new hot former stunt coordinators turned directing duo who immediately went their separate ways (one was an uncredited director mind you). Where Chad Stahelski stayed and continued to be the director of the Wick series, David Leitch went his own way to direct three new features: the nigh-incoherent Atomic Blonde, the incorrigible Deadpool 2 - AKA the one that can get away with being a never ending aside. And lastly, the first spin off adventure of this series, Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbes and Shaw. I will say that I really like the idea of this title convention and wonder how far can we stretch it? Fast and Furious Presents: The New Mummy Movie. Fast and Furious Presents: Pride and Prejudice. Fast and Furious Presents: Michael Haneke’s 2 Amour 2 Despair-ious.

Anyway, the thing about the Fast and Furious franchise is that as much as they evolve, they always know what they are on a core level. It’s not just that there’s certain hallmarks of family, corona, etc. There’s actually an approach to cinematography, coverage, and world building that’s stayed fairly consistent. No, really. As much as we joke about the evolution of the gang going from stealing dvd players to being super spies, the movies had this deliberate understanding of how to raise those stakes WITHIN the characters’ viewpoint OF those things. Meaning you see them react to the absurdity of much of these outward changes and stay in character. The distinction is critical. But it’s also one of those invisible little matters of approach that people don’t realize is critical to your belief. That is until something out of bounds to show you what everything in bounds has really looked like.

Because everything about the direction of this movie is flat-out wrong.

From the opening stand-off, to the split screen sequences, to the direct-to-camera monologues, right through the cgi-layered cluster-fucks of the two third acts. It not only breaks all sense of language it falls prey to “flair, flair, flair!” mentality that has little to do with a character's emotions and just looks cool. Meaning it trades the established, functional Fast coverage for the neon-soaked, quick-cutty hyper-stylization of the modern era and seems to do so without a single care in the world. Even on the production value front, the aesthetics are futuristic to the Nth degree without any real contextualization of this being a meaningful difference to anyone. Seriously. The script is trying to paint this as Every Men vs. Techno-Baddies, but the entire look of the film doesn’t back up the difference (until the end Samoa sequence, when it’s too little too late). All the techno crap feels the same. It ALL looks like the GI JOE movies.

Now, can a film be different from the Fast movies and still work? Of course! We’re talking about movies built on step-by-step evolution. The problem is that it has to be better than what’s offered in that series before (or else you’ve gone backwards). And with this film, every choice in this leads backwards.

Take the film’s complete lack of any kind of comedic restraint. Make no mistake, the Rock and Statham are funny people! The reason this spin-off exists in the first place and it’s because of the existing chemistry established in the series. The problem is that the film literally doesn’t understand how the banter actually functioned in the Fast franchise. I hate to say this, but it’s not really about the banter being all that funny? I mean, it sure helps when the lines are good. But mostly it was groan-worthy back and forths that feel playful- but most importantly, they’re SHORT. Just a few lines that lighten the tone of a scene as the movie’s plot keeps moving forward with a sense of purpose.

But here? Hobbs and Shaw just constantly STOPS for minutes at a time. You know, to DO COMEDY. There’s literally no other point. They make The Rock and Statham do the same big / little / hulk / ball-centric jokes again and again and again for two hours. And you can tell Leitch just let Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Hart, and all these actors just “riff” forever and barely seemed to cut a lick of it, no matter how fucking incoherent. I mean, the best friends gag? The second “outside” virus? The Hart air marshal who wants to be part of the team or something? These are meaningless, derailing sequences. And when you remove the baseline comedic reality, not only do you remove the tension to be able to play a real joke, you also remove the reality of the movie. Which is why none of this is funny, nor does it help the movie in making them feel more likable. Plus, they just have no clue where any of the comedy is ever heading because it has no ear for what works and doesn’t. It can’t separate the wheat from the chaff, so it all spews it all out like endless nonsense.

Sadly, this “no clue where it’s heading” mantra even feels a little true of the action (which I was not expecting). I’m not talking about the overall picture of heading to Samoa, but the nuts and bolts of each scene. I was just writing about how Lin and Wan’s entries had a baseline understanding of tension and how things can make you feel like they’re careening toward danger. No such danger exist here. It instead opts for demonstrations of badassery. Notice how little it sets up incoming threats or stakes! Which is why it alway sdevolves into a geography-less mash that feels brain leadening by the end (where we go from night to day to rain storm in “because fuck you who cares” like fashion). It doesn’t matter if established Fast writer Chris Morgan did the first draft on this (and you can see the hallmarks at the base-level with Samoa and the family stuff). You put all the incoherence on top of any solid base and it makes 2 hours and 20 minutes feet like 4.

It’s just such a waste. Not just of the obvious talents of the The Rock and Statham, but Vanessa Kirby is fucking electric in this and giving the movie everything she has. Same for Idris Elba, who is somehow only in his 2nd-most-fucked-by-direction effort of 2019 (the other would of course be Cats). Give him something to do besides tough posturing! Actually set up the story so that final deprogramming feels heartbreaking! You can’t just keep hinting at backstory as if this all USED to be emotional. Gah. I mean, if you’ve read this retrospective, you know I tend to be very forgiving of the lackluster parts of these films. And like all the Fast movies, this one has some really good gags (like Statham having to go through all the bad guys he beat up before getting the right facial recognition on the scanner). But everything gets lost in a war between developing sound text vs. falling for the fun texture.

Even logically it often hit me the wrong way. I mean, this is a series that has ABSURD continuity, but it still bends over backwards to address that continuity. But for the first time I was genuinely confused about where characters were left from last time? Like, Shaw’s mom is in jail now? Where’s Owen? Not even a mention? And wait, isn’t Vanessa Kirby 20 years younger than Statham? Didn’t Hobbs quit the force? And for a series that honors even bit part actors from 20 years ago, it suddenly recasts Hobb’s daughter? Fine. If the movie doesn’t care so much then I guess we don’t care about it in turn.

I’m telling ya, it all adds up. By the time we get to Samoa and it’s trying to make a meaningful homecoming about something genuinely important to Dwayne Johnson, it’s already failed the set-up so spectacularly (the bad guy secret base shoulda been on Samoa, which FORCES him to come home, they have more time to address the family stuff, yada yada, c’mon, these are first draft fixes, folks). It doesn’t even understand how to properly execute a next film tease and opts for the vague voice modulator guy. But it’s not just the technical execution that’s a problem - it’s a spiritual failing of the core tenet of what makes these movies work on the emotional level.

I mean, you KNOW a film is uncomfortable with sincerity when it buts the big emotional resolution scenes UNDER the fucking music-laden credits - all before hitting you with three nonsense post credit scenes where two of them are just half of the same scene???? To be sincere on screen? You have to be willing to be vulnerable. Which in modern parlance isn’t about being cute and ordering a lot of pancakes - it means being willing to be corny as hell. It means showing the scenes with earnest connection. But no, this film has the most basic disdain for that stuff, which is probably why it’s too busy making endless ball jokes (just SO many) to ever actually sink its teeth into the naked emotion.

The thing about the Fast films is they are unquestionably dumb, but still earnest off screen and ON. Not just with Coronas and barbecue. It’s the kind of film that gives you an absurd superman-jump and then looks you dead in the eye and delivers lines like “how did you know that car was gonna break our fall?” It owns the dumb. And they always play it straight because in the end they’re all big cloying dumb dorks. Even when Vin Diesel marble mouths some words about family, he actually fucking means it. And the movies do too. But with Hobbs and Shaw? It’s like a couple of cool kids thinking they’re genuinely escaping the trappings of the Fast franchise to make something “funnier” and “better” but it's neither. Instead, it’s a film so desperately afraid of the earnest clunk that it eludes its own core function, floats some sentiment in the texture as a poor make good, and still ends up with the WORST kind of story clunk anyway. So whatever promise its leads offered, it just became the same cynical empty trash filmmaking that fueled decades of Bayhem imitation - AKA the same filmmaking that made the achingly corny Fast movies a welcome alternative in the first place.

I can't believe I don’t like a movie where Eddie Marsan uses a flamethrower.

* * *

In a weird way, I’m thankful for Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw because it serves as a reminder of what these films actually mean to me (and how weirdly defensive I can be about what makes them good, haha… It even makes me appreciate that Fate of the Furious wasn’t THAT far off). But perhaps it’s a conversation fitting for the most unlikely blockbusters. Twenty years ago I ended up in a cinema with my entire car-loving town and now somehow we are here. There’s been twists and turns and improbable odds and genuine heartbreaking losses. But somehow, someway I care even more about it now than I even did going into Furious 7. Perhaps because the two most recent efforts have us teetering on the edge of losing what makes these car-loving dummies so special. But then again, I know the light of the spark hasn’t gone away in one sense…

Because do you know Vin Diesel put out music this year?

On first listen it’s such a silly song (please do yourself a favor, it’s on Spotify or youtube). And needless to say, it quickly became a punchline amongst my friends where they always putting it under other emotional videos like Tony Soprano crying and such… But then a funny thing happened… We just started genuinely liking it. Hell, I put it on every few weeks completely un-ironically. It’s earnest, clunky, bright, and easy-going. And I just genuinely like it now. So perhaps there’s never been a better metaphor for how we’ve all come to this like this movie series, too. Some things just worm their way into your heart through awkward, earnest gumption and being true to themselves.

So whatever it ends up being (and I hope it’s a course correction with Lin back helming), I hope we can all go enjoy F9: THE FAST SAGA. I know I say it almost every time, but…

I can’t believe they called it that.

<3HULK