"Fast Five" (2011) Review

   Director: Justin Lin

   Written By: Chris Morgan

   Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, and Dwayne Johnson.

            One thing director Justin Lin does well in this film besides the action is the setting. I would argue, this makes Brazil feel more like a character than the titular Tokyo in Tokyo Drift. Why is this the case? Well, just the opening paining shot of Christ the Redeemer and then the swaying around the mountains of tin roof homes, highlighting the poverty in the area as Brian and Mia and Dom are now “laying low”. It welcomes you into the world by forcing it upon you. 

        If Fast and Furious is their Empire Strikes Back then this is their return of the Jedi. Immediately delivering with a rescue mission and then heading to an underdeveloped area and robbing the people who took over that area. It’s honestly Return of the Jedi if they made Jabba the final villain, meaning with this analogy that makes Luke Hobbs Boba Fett which I’m perfectly fine with.

        The train scene is intense and something we have never seen before since the birth of this franchise about street racing. Brian fighting a guy with a torch and crashing the truck into the train. It’s an action set piece that would make Shane Black smile. But what the fuck is up with Dom driving cars off cliffs or buildings in these movies? Also note how Brian fighting with his legs is back! He started doing this in 2 Fast and he continues it on from here up until Fast 7.

        It’s such a shame that Michelle Rodriguez has barely been in Justin Lin’s Fast films because this one with Letty involved would’ve been the smash ultimate of the franchise. That’s my one complaint of this film really is that Lin likes to use Letty Ortiz as a plot device for Dom and he also uses Mia in the same light. Each isn’t characters they’re auxiliary features in these films, Mia is barely in the action in the sixth installment and Letty is killed off in the Fourth and Fifth films. Even in most of the action, Mia is set aside, like the train scene she gets in her car and then disappears. 

        I’m also not going to comment on the similarities of the Christ the Redeemer statue and Dom’s constant arm stretched similarly, but come on. If Dom isn’t supposed to be a Christ-like figure in this film, what am I smoking? This is the story of Jesus Christ if he was saved by his apostles during his arrest by the Romans by flipping their caravan and driving off with Jesus in a Toyota Supra. I mean if we look at the Judeu-Christian belief from a fifth-grader standpoint the first film involves his own followers abandoning him after the big street race as he is chased by the cops. The only one to save him then was Brian who would later betray him and then regret betraying him much like Judas.

        In this film, however, it’s Vince who betrays Dom, acting as Judas. This is more compelling, having not a point break parody anymore but having his own men be the antagonist and creating internal conflict for Dom, having him question if he’s taking his team in the right path after losing Letty, and now with his sister pregnant.

        So, I like to view this film as a Pseudo-Christian film where after this film everyone pretty much becomes Christ figures (Letty being resurrected for example). Where every film ends in a last supper/barbecue. Dom, with his apostles, plan to do one last job as he’s being tracked down by Luke Hobbs. This is the only film I think I can make a Christ similarity and a Star Wars analogy in.

            Luke Hobbs steals the fucking show and it’s one of my favorite performances from the Rock because it’s the Rock being the Rock without the cute bullshit. Actually, it’s the Rock being Tommy Lee Jones (the person the role was actually written for). Hobbs’ story is a more compelling one as we see this lawful Neutral character (Pontius Pilate if you are still willing to play ball with that analogy) turn into a character that better understands that doing the right thing involves more than just staying with the law of the land. This ties back into Brazil being a character. I shit you not, watch that “This is Brazil” scene again, just because it’s so fucking good but also because this signifies that Hobbs is out of his element. This is a place where the law barely works, and when it does it’s in service of corruption. “...and above all else, we don’t ever, ever let them into cars.”

            Fast Five takes the drama of Fast and Furious and adds an Ocean’s 11 parody that in the end just says fuck it and just rams an armored car into the building to get to the vault. Their whole plan, the entire scene of getting fast cars from a race is skipped over, them speeding and drifting around the corner fast enough before the camera caught them, the scene where they have an RC car drive around the layout of the vault room, all of this is pointless in the end. 

They pause and go,  "What the fuck are we doing? We are fucking superhumans!" 

Then the gang just attaches the vault to their chargers and drives off. It's amazing. 

        The cast is amazing! When I say amazing, I can’t stress that enough. This is probably the only film that can have characters run across tin roofs between gunfire, make a daring jump towards a sewer drain, and then have an emotional pregnancy reveal. 

        This is the point where the team becomes a family, and fuck if it is not so cheesy that you fucking succumb to it by the end. 

         When I say it takes the Drama from Fast Four, I am referring to my Dark Dom theory. This involves an intentional costume design set to describe Dom’s inner turmoils. We no longer see his iconic white tank top, clean-shaven look. Instead, we get a rougher Dom, wearing all black and a five 'o'clock shadow. The Dark Dom era takes place after Letty dies and continues up until he sees Letty again in six. Having the Dark Dom part of him actually fluctuate during Fast Five was smart. He wants to forget, but he cannot outlive his past. This is important for his character, who lives a quarter-mile at a time.  For someone to stay in the moment to be a runner from his problems was a shift in gears (pun intended) for his character. When he starts planning the heist as a way for freedom, a final escape from running, we see Dom sporting a light grey tank. Dom like his tank-top is tainted. He cannot go back to who he was.

            That is why Fast Five is my favorite Dom film, which might be replaced with Fast 9 with its main focus switching to Dom and his own family.