Fast Five Review

Fast Five Review

If you had never seen a Fast & Furious movie before and came into this knowing nothing, you would be completely lost, but it would make you want to see the others.  Unfortunately the other films in this series are no where near as good as this one.  Brian & Dom pick up the action where they left off after the Fast & Furious, yet somehow still before the events in the third movie, Tokyo Drift.  If that made as little sense to you as it made to me then just remember that the chronological order of the series is now: 1-2-4-5-3. After breaking Dom out of a prison, in spectacular fashion I might add, our heroes are now wanted criminals, and have fled to Rio.  In Rio our group finds themselves involved in another hijacking, this time a train full of DEA seized cars.  When one of the cars turns out to be carrying a digital treasure map of a notorious kingpin's cash houses, Dom & Brian find themselves the target of not only cops but of mercenaries and drug cartels.  This series of movies is really about anti-heroes.  These guys are bad guys, they do bad things, they steal, they shoot at cops, fight everyone including each other, and basically shirk the rules of society.  However because they are likable and do all these nasty things with a smile, we root and cheer for them.  We want them to succeed.  Hell they are so charming that even the guys who are supposed to be going after them fall in love with and/or join them in their cause.  The action in the film is just like the heroes in the film, we shouldn't believe it, we should audibly call out "Bulls***!" when they happen, but we don't we cheer, and cheer loud because as unrealistic as they are they look cool. Besides who really cares about realism so as long as there are big explosions and narrow escapes.  All morals, and physics aside, this movie does what it is supposed to.  We get to have fun, we get to enjoy two hours of meaningless fun.  As I stated at the beginning, this is probably the best movie out of the whole series. Could it be that this is the one series who's multiple sequels get better? The series, just like the cast is maturing, its stories continue to grow, to evolve into something more than its initial pedigree of hoochies and horsepower.  At it's core Fast Five is nothing more than a heist movie.  For those people who are unaware of what I am talking about, a heist movie is a movie about a group of criminals coming together to pull off one last job to get back at a rival, or someone abusing power (think Italian Job, or the Ocean's movies). Usually (especially since Ocean's 11) there is some sort of big wow moment where you realize, or rather they show you how they pulled off the big crime.  I won't go into details about how that happens in this movie, just be aware that you as an audience are being played for the better part of the movie's climax.  This movie is just like it's heroes, we shouldn't like it, we should think that it is bad, the problem is that it is so damn cool and charming that we love it, and really thats ok, especially for this time of year.