Obsequiousmelon enjoyed Fast Five

Name of the Film: Fast Five

Starring:  Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Dwayne Johnson and pretty much anyone that has ever been in any of the previous Fast and Furious films.    


              

Having bust Dom out of jail at the end of the fourth film the gang are on the run in Rio and running out of money.  When what seems to be an easy job goes badly wrong, the gang find themselves up against the local drug lord, the local police and a crusading marshal from America.

The Fast and the Furious franchise was all about car porn traditionally and although I love cars I need more from my films to maintain my interest and as the sequels started to increase in number I switched off by number three.  

However when the fourth film came Director Justin Lin decided to take the films in a new direction.  Instead of continuously ditching the characters in the previous films he returned to them and started to build the world we had already visited.  This reignited my interest because it is very clever.  The audience already knows the characters and so the fourth and now the fifth films are given added depth (not deep sea trench deep but at least they aren’t a puddle anymore!)

This is magnified by the other decision he made.  He noticeably dialed down the car porn.  This makes the films play like a more traditional action movie.  It also allows the characters more time to breath and grow and so suddenly I found myself caring.

Although Fast and Furious had some small problems it was clearly a set up for this film and Fast Five is by far the best film in the franchise.

The performances are strong and everyone involved seems very comfortable in their roles.  The kind of comfortable that comes from an actor playing a role for a protracted period of time.

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson deserves special credit and is definitely the MVP of the film.  He consumes every scene he is in (in a good way), injects intensity and becomes a formidable presence that is definitely a threat to the heroes, more so than the Joaquim de Almeida’s drug lord at times.

Fast Five is fun.  A lot of fun and is far and away the best of the series.  Go see it, you wont regret it.

Did I enjoy the film?  Yes, I had a lot of fun. 

Would I recommend it to my friends?  Yes and not just the petrol heads. 

Will I buy it on DVD/Blu Ray?  Yes.

If it was a mate would I let it date my Sister?  Yes but only casually, it's a bit frivolous.