Fast Five

Fast Five is the fifth installment in the Fast and the Furious franchise. After the original I would have never thought they would be able to take this franchise this far. After seeing the trailer for Fast Five I knew this would be a definite action packed movie that I would end up seeing and at the very least one that I would at least enjoy watching because of the fast cars. In this go around we are taken to Rio as Dom and Brian are on the run after breaking Dom out of prison, after a job goes wrong they are accused of killing three DEA agents, which puts a specialist team for catching fugitives hot on their trail. After learning this Dom and Brian plan a heist that ends up being one of those not as it seems moves.

Vin Diesel in the role of Dom is precisely what we have come to expect in this character of being kind of a meat head on the surface, but with the street smarts to get out of a lot of situations when more then brute force is needed. Over the three movies that Diesel has played in the franchise, his character has not really changed much and we have not seen much depth added to the character. Yet, his character is one that the audience cares and roots for, even though he pulls off heists in his street racing cars. Paul Walker co-stars as Brian O'Connor for the fourth time. His character has had an interesting progression throughout the franchise, starting as an undercover agent only to be on the other side of the law this time. Walker's character has some development that has gone on, but in the end he is still kind of the arrogant, cocky street racer, who makes calls on feelings even if it may not be the best decision in the end. Dwayne Johnson plays the D.S.S Agent Hobbs, who is sent to bring the fugitives back to justice. Johnson is the federal agent version of Dom and is a lot of brute force who is trying to physically out power the fugitives. Unfortunately, Johnson's character did not do much to impress me, I did not have the feelings of dislike that you want from the hunter in trying to catch the fugitives. The rest of the supporting cast all serve the roles perfectly and they all fit different roles so well, whether it is the comedic moments to the action they all take part. Joaquim de Almeida in the role of Hernan Reyes the true villain fits so well. He has played so many various villains that it is truly easy to hate him on screen and want everything to go against him. He is a devious and unforgiving crime boss who is able to run Rio through fear.

The story for Fast Five is nothing new and while it was far from groundbreaking it was still enjoyable to watch. The interesting part for me is that the heist part of the story was Ocean's 11 meets Italian Job with fast street racing cars. While some may say that having such a similar story is a bad thing, but the story worked for me. While the similarity to the nothing is as it seems  heist with the Italian Job, the aspect of the story that was similar to the original Fast and the Furious was a little stale. The aspect of the DSS agent being soft in the end, rather then bring in Dom and Brian, decides to give them a 24 hour head start, much similar in fashion to Brian letting Dom go free in the end. In the first film Brian letting Dom escape makes sense. In Fast Five Agent Hobbs letting them go seemed completely against everything we are made to believe in his character. We are told that Hobbs is the one they bring in when they need to catch someone because he always gets his man. So why would he risk his reputation for Dom and Brian? While they are able to outsmart Hobbs with some things in the end which work well I would have liked to see them outsmart him in order to escape.

The action sequences are over the top and many times it passes the point of ridiculousness, but that is what I think makes the movie so fun and enjoyable in the end. The stunt driving in the cars is not nearly as much as what was used in past movies. Yet, Dom and Brian  dragging a vault through the streets of Rio behind their obviously torqued up cars was pretty cool even though it was pretty unrealistic at being able to control a vault safe as much as they are able to. The action keeps everything moving at such a good pace in which the movie does not drag, but does not move so fast that we are not able to follow the story and the plot points that in the end are vital to the audience knowing what is going to happen.

Fast Five is an action movie that gives us some fast cars and fun action scenes. Nothing in the movie ends up being stellar, but all of the acting ends up being enough for what is needed. The story has its good points and a point or two that I did not love. I am giving Fast Five two and three fourth buckets of popcorn out of five. Fast Five is not a great movie, but it is one that is worth renting.

-The Movie Man