Fast Five

I am having slightly better turnaround times at getting to my latest installment covering the Fast and Furious franchise with today’s film being 2011’s Fast Five (trailer). The rousing success of the fifth film served as the blueprint for all the films following it until this day. I went in with no fears that it would still hold up well nearly a decade later.

As mentioned in my entry for Fast & Furious, the films were starting to evolve from the core trilogy that were primarily about late night car tuner culture and street races and shift more towards implementing these rides in elaborate heists. Fast Five goes all in on this concept and minus a few subtle callbacks throughout the film, ditches the street race focus of the first three films entirely. Now the heists are at the forefront and became larger than life where director Justin Lin went on to state in the commentary he learned to ‘embrace the ridulous-ness’ and go all out with fantastical stunts that I recall leading to many popped eyes in my initial viewing in the theater.

Fast Five sees Dom (Vin Diesel), Bryan (Paul Walker) and Mia (Jordana Brewster) reunite in Brazil after freeing Dom from custody at the end of the previous film. They meet up with their old pal, Vince (Matt Schulze) who we have not seen since the original film. The four of them group up for a job involving a train that has some spectacular stunts to kick things off. During the job they discover there is more than meets the eye and they encounter the antagonist of the film by the name of Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida). The four decide to assemble a team to take down Reyes and claim his millions of dollars stashed away in a vault. And thus we now have the new framework for the series where ‘Team FF’ are the ultimate pros at big jobs and work together in the name of ‘FAMILY’ to take down evil-doer crime lords.

The team they assemble is a all-star roll call of supporting players from previous films including Roman (Tyrese Gibson) & Tej (Ludacris) from 2Fast 2Furious, Han (Sung Kang) from Tokyo Drift, and Gisele (Gal Gadot), Leo (Tego Calderon) & Santos (Don Omar) from Fast & Furious. To cover their bases of a gang having the prerequisite computer wiz, Tej stepped up and added pro-hacker to his resume aside from fun-party-rides guy from the second film we knew him as. They receive some unexpected assists from federal agents Hobbes (The Rock) and Elena (Elsa Pataky). They are the surviving two members of a squad of federal agents (who the Giant Bomb commentary track consistently refers to as ‘Team Wildlands’) sent from the USA to track down Dom, Bryan & Mia and haul them back to America until their squad mates met their demise from an ambush sent out from Reyes. Now with a common enemy and mutual respect between the two after an adrenaline-pumping, full-on red meat, wall-pouncing, show-stealing duel, the two alphas align in a fist-bumping moment for the ages when Hobbes & Elena help out Team FF.

Somehow, director Justin Lin managed to make this ensemble cast gel together all at once. Nearly every team member has a few pivotal scenes throughout where the spotlight is on them. I was fully invested when the team is formed by the second half and is going through the stages of setting up the ultimate end-scene safe heist. Watching them all flawlessly work together and overcome every obstacle Reyes threw at them was a ride I was thrilled to tag along in. It reminded me why I loved (some) of the Ocean films and enjoying the journey of planning everything out and trying to piece together all the little things that pay off when the heist plays out. When it comes time for Team FF to swipe Reyes’ safe from his seemingly impenetrable fortress, Fast Five did not disappoint. I recall seeing this in the theater for the first time and simultaneously thinking this is the most unrealistic way to steal a safe but also loved how brazen Lin was to simply go for it and own this scene and take you on the ultimate thrill ride unlike any other heist film before it. It was like Lin stated earlier, just roll with the balls-out nature of the film and good times will be guaranteed.

As with the previous films I have been re-watching, I watched this with the commentary track from the Giant Bomb crew. Aside from them cracking me up with their ‘Team Wildlands’ nickname, their commentary has lots of fun watch-a-long insight such as regretting bringing Coronas to the viewing party after realizing Fast Five is the first film in the series not to feature them, ironic love for Paul Walker’s acting prowess and being in constant disbelief at Ludacris’s newfound tech skills. Vinny never saw the film before so hearing his reactions to the bigger stunts was a riot. I also listened to Justin Lin’s solo commentary on the BluRay and he is a pro at mastering solo commentaries with nonstop facts about the cast, crew and filming process. Some highlights include hearing the love he got from doing overseas press tours on the fourth film was what brought him back for the fifth, pointing out the tiny additions to the extended cut and being careful on where to film in Brazil.

Aside from the commentary, there are 12 bonus features totaling 75 minutes on the BluRay. About half of them are must-see. Usually most bonuses breaking down stunt scenes I am accustomed to in a lot of action films and I get kind of tone-deaf to them, but with Fast Five’s ambitious stunts I got a lot out of the bonuses detailing how they filmed the opening train heist and closing safe heist. Hearing how they got a mini-truck inside to drive the safe around was something else. There is also a recommended extra, On Set with Justin Lin, where Lin is shown behind-the-scenes hustling for the ultimate shots of what seems like a inconsequential scene from an earlier part of the film, but to see how Lin got it all come together to get the very best out of everyone was simply awesome. I got to see some of that too in the extra Dom vs. Hobbes where they dissect that fight scene and hearing how Lin halted production for two hours to hear Vin Diesel make his case for the inclusion of ONE MOVE in that entire fight goes to show the passion the cast and crew has for the brand. Overall it is a tremendous smattering of extra features to dive into!

Fast Five is the reason why the franchise has been a mainstay in pop culture since that one hit theaters. If you have managed to elude the mega-popular brand all these years but have been pondering on giving one of them a chance, then make sure it is Fast Five. The later films are still good, over-the-top awesome heist films, but Fast Five is easily my runaway favorite of the series.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
The Accountant
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Countdown
Creed
Deck the Halls
Die Hard
Dredd
The Eliminators
The Equalizer
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Guardians of the Galaxy
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Indiana Jones 1-4
Ink
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jobs
Joy Ride 1-3
Man of Steel
Man on the Moon
Marine 3-6
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Mortal Kombat
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
The Replacements
Reservoir Dogs
Rocky I-VII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Shoot em Up
Skyscraper
Small Town Santa
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Vision Quest
The War
Wild
Wonder Woman
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Days of Future Past