I must be a snob. What else can you say about someone who doesn’t like the new Fast & Furious movie?
Written by Chris Morgan and directed by Justin Lin, Fast Six follows the criminal gang led by Dominic Toretto as its members attempt to clear their names in exchange for helping U.S. Diplomatic Security Service agent Luke Hobbs take down a skilled mercenary organization led by Owen Shaw and Dominic’s presumed dead lover, Letty Ortiz. Brian O’Connor, Mia Toretto, Roman Pearce, Han Lue, and the rest of the crew have remained wanted fugitives since their successful heist in Fast Five, and are looking for a way to return home.
Fast Six is a logical extension of Fast Five, which moved away from the theme of underground street racing to offer up an Ocean’s Eleven-style plot driven by insane vehicular action. This time out, the series redefines itself as an action thriller. The insane vehicular action, however, remains.
The new Fast & Furious movie is clearly meant to be nothing more than an entertaining summer blockbuster. What else can you say about a movie in which a tank explodes out of a tractor-trailer, setting off an over-the-top highway chase that ends with a stunt that defies all-known physics? And what else can you say about lines like, “Just because you know how I ride doesn’t mean you know me?” And what else can you say about the scene in which Vin Diesel does his best impression of a romantic lead by telling an amnesic Letty how she got her scars?
But the movie was not fun for me. Hence, I must be a snob.
In my defense, I didn’t mind the plot, despite its implausible nature. The Fast & Furious series needs to continue to move in new directions to stay fresh, and the screenwriters of Fast Six did so in a way that ties logically into the previous films. I might have a hard time believing Toretto and company could go from street racers to terrorist chasers, but this is a movie, not real life, so some slack is in order.
I didn’t mind the goofy dialog, either. You have to have some brass cojones to write lines like these:
Letty: “How did you know that car would be there to catch our fall?”
Dominic (doing his best impression of a rock slide): “Sometimes, you have to take those things on faith.”
I didn’t even mind the outrageous stunts. I was weaned on Indiana Jones movies, so the more outrageous the stunt, and the more far-fetched the survival of those involved, the better. I wasn’t one of the viewers who moaned when two characters were thrown off of speeding vehicles and landed safely in each other’s arms on another vehicle; I was one of the ones who wanted to cheer.
But there was a problem: the action was too fast and too furious.
Justin Lin is a good director. As each installment since the third Fast & Furious has shown, he has a good eye for action and he knows how to keep his characters at the center of things. So I don’t understand his impulse in Fast Six to shove his camera at things and then wildly whip it around. Nor did I care for how cut-cut-cut happy he appeared to be when editing the movie. Shots, even ones involving impressive vehicular stunts, last no more than a second or two. Fight scenes are a blur of camera movements. And, weirdly, a major character death is lost in the haze.
The movie ends with Toretto and his crew pursuing a large airplane down a runway in an attempt to bring it down with a few harpoons. Shot at night, I found the action difficult to follow, and the movie’s disregard for logic finally used up the last of my good graces. Given the speed of the vehicles during the more than 13-minute sequence, the runway must have been the same length as the distance from Chattanooga to, oh, Little Rock.
Fast Six is on track to earn more money than the previous installments, and production on a seventh film is scheduled to begin in August. Lin has decided to not return, so I’m hoping the next director will dial back the shaky cam and linger for a few seconds on the money shots. Then I’ll be able to write a good review and won’t seem like a snob.
Two stars out of four. Rated PG-13 for intense violence, action, and mayhem throughout, and some sexuality and language.