Will wonders never cease? It turns out that Fast Five is even better than Fast & Furious, a movie I was pleasantly surprised with. The racing shenanigans are further toned down, mostly replaced with some clever (if absurd) chase scenes, more action, and the structure of a heist film. Oh, and there's the ace up Fast Five's sleeve: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who injects an adrenaline rush into an already testosterone laden explosion fest.
If you somehow haven't heard anything about Fast Five, the most critically well received and highest grossing of the series to date, Dwayne Johnson isn't the only attraction for audiences. The team that Dom and Brian assemble includes cast members from every previous film in the series: Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson) and Tej Parker (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges) from 2 Fast 2 Furious; Han Lue (Sung Kang) from The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift; Gisele Harabo (Gal Gadot), Tego Leo (Tejo Calderon) and Don Omar (Don Omar) from Fast & Furious, and the aforementioned Vince (Schulze) from The Fast and the Furious. Each member of the team has a specific function in the heist, and their interaction provides a much needed comic relief between car chases and fight scenes. Brewster and Gadot, in particular, have more to do than be concerned window dressing for the manly men than they did in Fast & Furious.
While Fast & Furious was very much Vin Diesel's show, rightfully so considering he was returning to the series, Fast Five's appeal belongs as much to Dwayne Johnson as it does to the original bad boy. Johnson has the better entrance, the better lines, and the better chase scene. His team is more lethal, better organized, and nearly take down the "heroes" on more than one occasion during the film, and they handle a late ambush without hesitation.
Johnson is almost cartoonishly muscular in the film, just barely squeezing into the five-sizes-too-small t-shirts, a contrast to Diesel's loosely fitting t-shirts and wife-beaters. Their fight scene doesn't disappoint: from the moment that Hobbs destroys Dom's car and then slams his head into what's left of it, it's clear they're evenly matched and the ensuing brawl does justice to both larger-than-life action stars. It makes sense, considering that Diesel and Johnson of them have been away from the genre for a while (both, at times, with Disney, in The Pacifier and The Tooth Fairy respectively).
As heists go, I'll give Fast Five credit for not trying to reinvent the wheel or out-think themselves. There's only one piece of misdirection, and I have to admit that because of where it happens in the climactic chase scene, I didn't catch it immediately. Most of the film is setting up a heist that never happens, as the heat comes down on our heroes too soon and they have no choice but to resort to brute force, leading to a wild (and probably impossible) pursuit between Reyes' crooked cops, Dom, Brian, and a bank safe through downtown Rio. The property damage and implied fatalities go by so quickly that all you can do is laugh at how ridiculous and audacious the set-piece is, one the closes with a bridge chase that puts Bad Boys 2 to shame.
Returning director Justin Lin has another factor working for him: the ability to convey geography, spatial relationships, and a logical flow to action sequences. That shouldn't be so much to ask for, but so many "action" films are obsessed with rapid cuts and disjointed edits that make the flow of chases and fights impossible to keep up with. Even The Expendables wasted what should have been a great fight between Dolph Lundgren and Jet Li with incomprehensible cuts and tight closeups. While Lin's Fast Five showdown between Hobbs and Toretto has some of these problems, he handles all of the vehicular action with great aplomb, giving a sense of momentum while never sacrificing coherency to look "cool."
The Cap'n may have been exaggerating the lack of racing in the film, although it's limited to one street racing scene involving stolen police cars and the final moment in the film, a Rocky III-ending-like culmination of Brian's obsession with beating Toretto in a one-on-one race. The cars themselves move into the background, less as objects of fascination for the guys (and gals), and become tools to pull of the kind of robbery no one should be able to organize. Combined with Fast & Furious, this appears to be the direction the series is headed in, where cars are the secondary factor in action set-pieces, which is fine with me. The post-credits setup for Fast Six (or whatever they call it) implies that Johnson will be back, along with a surprise cameo and another returning cast member. If Fast Five is any indication, I might actually enjoy where the series goes, if not where it originated.
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