CHUCK'S ROUNDHOUSE: Breaker! Breaker! (1977)

If you are reading these words, I probably don't have to explain any of the following. Indulge me, please: Rising oil prices in the seventies led to the U.S. government enforcing a national speed limit of 55 miles-per-hour. This was very unpopular with long haul truckers, under strict deadlines to make big deliveries. The drivers would employ citizen band radio to inform each other of where to find the best prices, how to avoid the highway patrol, and other such things truckers would need to know. Rather unexpectedly, this would make truck drivers, of all professions, cool. These blue collar workers were now anti-establishment types, sticking it to the man and fighting the powers that be. Or maybe it was just because of the goofy trucker's slang used over CB air waves, full of baffling jargon specifically designed to confuse authorities, began to penetrate into the wider culture. It then, essentially, became the seventies version of a modern meme. Today, the kids say “Six seven!” Fifty years ago, they said “Ten four!” The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Also much like today, the ever opportunistic entertainment industry figured they could make a little money off the latest stupid fad. The pioneer of this new trucker-sploitation movement was a very silly, very catchy song performed by the mascot from a series of bread commercials. A blockbuster film franchise and a semi-popular TV show would follow in C.W. McCall's exhaust. However, plenty of low budget also-rans and sleazy knock-offs were also there to feed America's newfound appetite for big rigs. Filmmakers already catering to drive-in audiences with B-movies about rednecks and good ol' boys were more than happy to include a truck or two to take advantage of what was hot at the moment. 

Enter: Chuck Norris. The karate pro would claim, years later, that he had been offered other martial arts movies since getting kicked in the face by Bruce Lee. He turned them all down because, quote, he "wanted to do films that had a story and where the action would take place when it is emotionally right." Surely, the directorial debut of the composer of "They Saved Hitler's Brain!" would provide the kind of story-driven, emotionally nuanced film making Chuck was looking for with his star debut. Whatever the reason behind its production, "Breaker! Breaker!" would roll out into theaters two months before "Smokey and the Bandits" went into wide release. It was the right time and place, the low budget flick making a sturdy little profit and proving that Chuck could carry a whole motion picture on his burly, hairy shoulders.

When not practicing meditation, getting into bar room brawls, or perfecting that sweet Laurel canyon sound, J.D. Dawes is a truck driver by trade. He loans his little brother, Billy, his truck and lets him have a go at the family business. Billy is led by a deceptive C.B. broadcast into the obscure town of Texas City, California. Ruled over by the eccentric Judge Trimmings, whose maniacal whims are enforced by an alcoholic town sheriff, the village extorts and harasses any villages that pass through its boundaries. When Billy tries to escape, he's held captive. J.D. heads out in his van with a bitchin' eagle painted on the side in search of his brother. He tracks the trail to Texas City, where a local shoots the tires out of his vehicle. On his quest to rescue his brother, J.D. uncovers the criminal activities the town authorities are running and seeks to free those forced to live under their rule with all the spin punches and high kicks he can muster.

While “Breaker! Breaker!” was obviously trying to capitalize on the seventies trucker fad, the film is actually a weird-ass fusion of several different genres that were prominent in grindhouses and drive-ins. The film is set mostly in California. However, the sweaty faces, greasy overalls, poor dental hygiene, and exaggerated accents of the locals bring the deep south to mind. The antagonistic residents of Texas City – which, aside from the judge and the cop, include a wild-eyed mechanic swinging a tire iron – are clearly cut from the same cloth as the bucktoothed, inbred attackers of “Deliverance” and its many imitators. The narrative, of civilized outsiders stumbling into some savage hick town, brings these kind of killer redneck stories to mind. 

However, these kind of good ol' boys are also the heroes of the story. J.D. also meets an ambiguously mentally disabled younger brother of one of the locals, who also speaks with a stutter and is extremely friendly in that childish manner that typically characterizes patronizing depictions such as these. JD also shacks up with a local single mom. An earlier scene has our hero playfully participating in bar room brawls and getting pointers from his wild-eyed, cowboy hat wearing pal. (Played by none other than Jack Nance!) In its last half-hour, “Breaker! Breaker!” remembers its supposed to be a trucker movie. J.D. calls in his long-haulin' friends to smash their 18-wheelers through the buildings, vehicles, and armaments of Texas City's corrupt authorities. It's a joyful explosion of mayhem, scored to hillbilly banjo music and the inanest of inane C.B. radio chatter. This inexplicably makes “Breaker! Breaker!” both flavors of hicksploitation, in which the simple country folk are both hostile freaks attacking outsiders and underclass anti-heroes striking back at the cops, lawmen, and all other enforcers of the system that oppress them. 

This does not represent the end of “Breaker! Breaker!'s” eccentric mixing of genres. Judge Trimmings dresses like Boss Hogg but behaves almost like a cult leader, enrapturing his followers with his words and shouting condemnation at his enemies. You wouldn't have to change much to turn this into a horror movie, of weirdo backwoods rednecks sacrificing outsiders unlucky enough to stumble into their territory. Obviously, the story of a lone hero wandering into a beleaguered town to clear out the corrupt boss in control recalls “A Fistful of Dollars.” The climax even zooms in on Chuck's eyes, like he's in a Sergio Leone movie. Said climax is also a one-on-one showdown between the hero and villain, with roundhouse kicks and a broken liquor bottle standing in for six-shooters. This also draws attention to how the ramshackle wooden sets look like a western ghost back lot. 

That final fight, by the way, ends with a freeze frame of a horse leaping over a face. It is a melodramatically shot moment, that seemingly has little connection to both this specific scene and the movie around it. Which points towards the most endearing thing about “Breaker, Breaker!” It's fucking goofy. Trimmings is played by experienced character actor George Murdock, who invests the villain with far more sinister intent and diabolic style than the material called for. He also randomly quotes Shakespeare and seems to be having some sort of puppet-based romantic role play with a doll-obsessed woman in town. This plays out against ridiculous images like Chuck's shaggin' wagon, a number of underwhelmingly choreographed vehicle chases, or a random redneck emerging to fight Chuck with a pitch fork. The film somehow manages to repeatedly top itself in terms of silly bullshit and I, for one, welcome that. 

The one thing “Breaker! Breaker!” never quite feels like is a martial arts movie, perhaps solidifying Norris' claim that he chose the project because it wasn't a mindless fight flick. Don't think that means there aren't plenty of high kicks and punches here. The script seems to inject an excuse for Chuck to fight some guys about every fifteen minutes, no matter how out-of-place it might seem. This builds to a joyously silly extended sequence midway through the film, where Norris battles his way through a succession of rednecks after the other. Though this was only his first starring role, J.D. Dawes does seem to be the prototypical Chuck Norris hero in many ways. He's a soft-spoken guy who is seemingly found by violent circumstances, rather than seeking them out. Though Chuck never puts on a cowboy hat or boots, his character undeniably has that kind of rustic, western hero energy. This stands at odds with his embracing of Asian mysticism. In fact, the character seems to be teaching zen yoga techniques to some of the random rednecks he meets at a truck stop before using his meditation skills to, seemingly, heal a wound later in the film. He's a cowboy, a karate master, a mystic and a warrior monk all at once.

He's also, like many heroes played by Norris and others, kind of gay. J.D. gets a female love interest and an implied romantic night with her, sure. At the same time, his need to find his little brother is what motivates the entire plot. To the point that he has traumatic nightmares about losing the boy. When he finally does rescue Billy, he softly caresses the kid's face before pulling him into an embrace I thought for sure was going to turn into a kiss. The bond between the two is also introduced with some on-the-ground, in-the-dirt roughhousing, that ends with both of their blue jean clad asses up in the air. Maybe these two are brothers in more of a communal sense, if you get my meaning. That's when you notice the contrast between muscular, hirsute Norris and the smaller, skinnier, hairless Terry O'Conner as the brother, making me wonder how in on the joke the producers were. Who knows what kind of stuff two strapping bucks might get up to during those long, lonely nights on the road? 

In other words, I went into “Breaker! Breaker!” expecting a standard seventies redneck car chase movie that starred Cordell Walker in the fetal stages of his career. Basically, “Convoy” but with Chuck Norris kicking people intermittently inserted. While that isn't an entirely inaccurate description of the film, it's also much wackier than I expected. This is the kind of fast and loose B-movie the seventies ran on, where the audience never misses the feeling that the filmmakers would randomly make up a new set piece every day. I mean that as a compliment, as it lends the motion picture a giddy, unhinged quality that makes it ridiculously entertaining for its entire runtime. The MST3k boys riffed on it recently for a RiffTrax special but I honestly can't imagine the film being funnier or sillier than it already is. In other words, quality drive-in entertainment. Zack says check it out. [9/10]

 

[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 3 outta 5]
[] Facial Hair
[X] Jumps or Kicks Through a Window or Wall
[X] Performs Spin Kick or Spin Punch to Enemy’s Face
[X] Shows Off His Hairy Chest
[] Sports Some Cowboy Getup

 

OSCARS 2026: F1 (2025)

Let us consider the career of screenwriter Ehren Kruger. If you ignore an obscure TV movie and a random Rutger Hauer vehicle, Kruger would first gain fame for writing well-liked thriller “Arlington Road.” Two years after that, he penned “The Ring,” which is still regarded as the best of American J-horror remake trend. Otherwise, Kruger's credits are a line-up of disheartening blockbuster schlock. He did an uncredited polish on the worst “Scream” movie. He put his name on the worst Philip K. Dick adaptation, the movie that ended John Frankenheimer's theatrical career, the Terry Gilliam joint nobody defends, an anime adaptation most famous for whitewashing its heroine, three of the Michael Bay “Transformer” sequels, and Tim Burton's “Dumbo” remake. I don't think Kruger deserves sole blame for any of these features. Maybe the original scripts were really good and got fucked-up during troubled productions or by apathetic filmmakers. Nevertheless, Kruger being associated with so many films that range from deeply mediocre to some of the most annoying big budget movies I've ever seen has not endeared him to me. 

Likewise, let us look at the career of Joseph Kosinski. He first gained attention for elaborate, special effects heavy commercials for video games. This lead to an elaborate, special effects heavy sequel about video games and the least memorable Tom Cruise sci-fi vehicle. It's not that “Tron: Legacy” or “Oblivion” are dreadful movies but they are ones that made little impression on me. Mostly, I associate Kosinski as one of those guys who, for years, gets attached to any number of uninspiring I.P.-driven reboots or sequels before inevitably moving onto something else. But powerful friends can take you places in Hollywood. Clearly Tom Cruise liked working with Kosinski and he eventually got the job to helm the long-in-development “Top Gun” sequel.  That movie become both a surprise box office and critical hit, earning six Academy Award nominations. Kruger wrote that one too and his screenplay got an Oscar nomination, which is pretty funny in light of the rest of his career. 

Now, it would seem, Kosinski and Kruger are hoping to spring off “Top Gun: Maverick's” critical acclaim to change the direction of both of their careers. The director and screenwriter would next re-team not for another forgettable CGI action fest nor a lame reboot of an old cartoon. Instead, they collabed on “F1.” (Advertised on most of the posters as “F1: The Movie,” presumably to differentiate it form “F1: The Sport” or “F1: The Commemorative Dishware.”) Since Tom Cruise had already made his race car movie, another mega-star – Brad Pitt – would be tapped to star. I don't know anybody who saw “F1” but I guess a lot of people did, as it became the ninth highest grossing movie of 2025.  While the movie honestly isn't that different from the work Kosinski and Kruger have made in the past, an aura of prestige was around “F1” all throughout its release. That the film has gone on to be nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, suggest that Kosinski and Kruger have indeed successfully reinvented themselves as critical darlings. 

Sonny Hayes self-describes not as a has-been in the world of Formula One racing so much as a never-was. His potential has never paid off and he's spent his career as a second stringer. After a successful run at the 24 Hours of Daytona competition, old friend Ruben Cervantes arrives with a proposition. The F1 team Cervantes owns is on the verge being sold unless they start to win some races. Sonny is talked into being the team's second driver. He quickly begins to butt heads with Joshua Pearce, the team's rookie driver, and Kate, the technical director. Sonny helps Kate upgrade the team's car to new heights. His on-going rivalry with Joshua – who is looking to sign with another team – and his own medical problems derail any further wins. It all comes to a head at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. 

After “Maverick” became such a hit, there was a brief conversation about Tom Cruise returning to his other Tony Scott directed drama about a cocky asshole who pilots fast-moving vehicles. I'm doubtful if “More Days of Thunder” will ever come to theaters but “F1” gives us a decent idea of what it might look like anyway. In his youth, Sonny was probably a lot like Cole Trickle. Over the last thirty years, he's acquired plenty of injuries and emotional burn-out but not much in the way of achievement. He is, in other words, an overgrown cocky kid, still with a lot to prove but quickly running out of time to prove it. It's a familiar character and “familiar” is the exact mold “F1” is operating in. The archetypal roles here are that of young rival, down-on-his-luck mentor, a sleazy corporate antagonist willing to sell everyone out, and a female technician the hero naturally shares a will-they-won't-they? romance with. It's extremely easy to guess where all of this is headed. The hero is going to learn about humility and friendship on his way to securing his legacy, the rival will learn to respect his elders, and the girl is certainly going home in Brad Pitt's arms. The protagonist being an old screw-up rather than a young screw-up does provide some degree of novelty but, otherwise, “F1” makes no effort to resist inspirational sports movie cliches. 

“F1” being so – if you'll excuse the inevitable pun – formulaic raises the question of why the Academy felt the need to acknowledge it all. There is a degree of real world subtext at work in the film. Much as there was in “Top Gun: Maverick,” a movie as much about Tom Cruise attempting to mold the next generation of mega-watt movie stars as it is about a retirement age pilot fostering a new team. Brad Pitt is Cruise's former “Interview with the Vampire” co-star and of the same generation of nineties idols. He's one of the few “true” movie stars we have left, able to open a motion picture based strictly on his charisma alone. But he's getting older and he knows it too. “F1” sees Brad Pitt do all the Brad Pitt things you'd expect. He has satisfying romantic chemistry with Kerry Condon, the two's relationship being one of the better elements of the film. He smiles cockily, chuckles, does dangerous stunts, and somehow paints the image of being kind of a washed-up mess despite obviously looking like Brad Pitt. I felt “Maverick” was a fairly half-assed attempt to pass the baton on Cruise's behalf. “F1” doesn't even pretend, as co-star Damson Idris is a wilting forgettable presence in Pitt's shadow. However, the tension the movie industry feels these days over individual talent being eclipsed by corporate I.P. does run throughout “F1.” 

Another reason “F1” scored points with Academy voters is that it's an impressive technical exercise. As Kosinski did with “Maverick,” CGI spectacle has given way to more grounded, practical effects. The film often puts the camera right into the cockpit with its racers. Sparks fly along the track and against the fences around the road. The speed of the vehicles and the spur-of-the-moment decisions the drivers have to make in these races is conveyed to the audience. Claudio Miranda's cinematography is gritty and fast-moving, while Stephen Mirrione's editing cuts quickly but coherently between multiple perspectives. Naturally, this is most apparent during the multiple crash scenes, the moments when the film most comes to life. The cars spinning through the air, the twisted metal being tossed around, the impact on the drivers, the risk to their lives: All are successfully felt by the audience. If motion pictures were judged strictly by the way they look, sound, and move, “F1” would be a masterpiece.

There's a problem here, however. It's strictly my problem alone but it's one I cannot emphasize enough: I do not care about auto-racing. I do not care about the technical specs of the cars. I do not care about the number of wins or conditions necessary to head towards one championship or another. “F1” is deeply invested in both of these things, multiple long scenes dedicated to the various changes and alterations needed to be made to the car to turn it into a proper winner. While “Days of Thunder” at least made NASCAR a coherent experience, at no point during “F1” did I understand how the hell these races actually operate. The script is full of the minutia regarding the rules, which Sonny and his enemies and friends exploit at various points. Getting a car from point-A to point-B faster than all the other cars should be a simple thing to understand. Instead, I spent much of “F1” completely baffled as to what the fuck any of this meant. What is a safety car? What do the letters APXGP mean? How are slick tires different from regular tires? How is a points finish secured? I do not know. Much more pressingly, I do not care. 

My indifference towards all sporting events is the biggest roadblock to me getting much of anything out of “F1.” As the title indicates, the film is essentially one long advertisement for the sport, featuring actual racers and extensive real world branding. I want to say something pithy like “Even if I did understand Formula 1 racing, the stock-parts script would still leave me unsatisfied.” But the over-reliance on the obscurities of race car regulations is a feature, not a bug, for this one. I can admire the professional, ambitious filmmaking on display here in terms of the shooting, editing, sound engineering, and special effects. However, there's simply no in – emotional or narrative – to the story for anyone outside its world. [5/10]

 

RECENT WATCHES: Fast X (2023)

I came to the "Fast & Furious" franchise late. My best friend and former podcast co-host JD has been trying to get me into the series for years. I, however, couldn't get pass the car-bro sensibilities of the first few entries. I'm also too much of an obsessive-compulsive nerd to simply jump in at the fourth or fifth movie. The looming release of "Fast X" – supposedly the beginning of the end for the saga of Dom Torreto and his family – was the push I needed to finally indulge in this particular franchise. Over the course of a week, I raced through the previous ten movies before heading to the theaters to see "Fast X." Admittedly, I went from a "Fast" skeptic to a full-on convert by the end. While most seem to consider "Fast X" the latest disappointing installment in a series running on fumes, I'll admit I had a good time with it. Maybe Vin was right. Maybe movies like this, of such overwhelming bombast and absurdity, are best enjoyed on a big screen with a packed audience. 

Once again, Dom and his wife Letty are living in peace with their son, Little B. Once again, the mysterious Agency they've been aligned with for the last few films wants to recruit them. This time, it's to retrieve an experimental microchip traveling through Italy. Roman decides to lead the rest of the "Fast" family on this mission, Dom staying behind. That's when an injured Cipher appears at his home. She warns him that a sadistic new villain has appeared: Dante Reyes, the psychotic son of "Fast Five's" Hernan Reyes, is determined not only to destroy Dom and his family but to make sure they suffer as well. There is no microchip and the mission in Italy is a scheme by Dante. Dom and Letty try to rescue the others from Dante's plot but it goes awry. Soon, everyone is on the run from the Agency or Dante's murderous rage. 

I've commented before that the last two "Fast" movies have started to feel a bit muddled in their plotting, with so many characters running around in pursuit of increasingly unimportant MacGuffins. "Fast X" finds a perhaps inelegant solution to this problem. It essentially isolates parts of its cast to four independent storylines for most of its runtime. Dom heads to Rio, in pursuit of Dante, hoping to spare more innocents from his wicked plot. Roman, Han, Tej, and Ramsey are on-the-run from authorities through Europe, after being framed by Dante for a terrorist attack in Italy. Letty gets captured and thrown in an underground techno prison with Cipher, the former enemies forced to forge an alliance if they hope to escape. Meanwhile, Jakob Torreto rescues Little B from Dante's thugs, leading the two on a road trip across America together. Running through all these stories are appearances from two new characters, in the form of Brie Larson and Alan Ritchson as opposing members of the Agency. 

We can only speculate on why the movie is structured like this. The fact that nobody wants to work with Vin Diesel anymore might be a factor. So might Justin Lin leaving the production early on, to be replaced by graduate of the Luc Besson school of action, Louis Leterrier. Whatever the reason, I actually found this split to work fairly well. Dom's story line is by far the grimmest, with Dante playing cruel head games by endangering innocent bystander. This segment is also the heaviest on the series' trademark car stunts, featuring a brief return to its street racing roots. Letty and Cipher's prison escape movie has its own joys. Michelle Rodriguez and Charlize Theron's mutual grizzled charisma play off each other nicely. The absurdity of the techno prison setting, with its spider robots and massive air vents, amused me. As did the convoluted planning the two characters have to think up in order to escape. 

Meanwhile, the other halves of the movie are goofier than ever. Roman's gang head into a hacker shop, leading to a cameo from everyone's favorite sunken-eyed comedy star/gossip mill whipping boy. There are comedic beats here involving Han eating a pot muffin and Tyrese tossing talcum powder into the air that are totally inexplicable. Honestly, the more surreal humor blends nicely with a series that has gone so totally off the rails. The last movie that comprises "Fast X," revolving around Jakob and Brian's road trip, feels like a nineties kids movie/action flick mash-up. John Cena might as well be playing a totally different character, the fun uncle Jakob has become resembling part nine's conniving super villain not at all. Yet Cena's goofball charm seals the deal for me. By the time the former pro-wrestling superstar is driving a homemade war wagon down the freeway, launching rockets at his enemies, I really did feel like I was watching a big budget leftover from the "Suburban Commando/Double Trouble" era of action cinema. 

If the muscled-up charms of its cast are the main thing that holds "Fast X" together, this is most true of its antagonist. The "Fast" franchise didn't start getting memorable bad guys until the sixth film and Jason Momoa as Dante Reyes easily tops them all. Momoa is exactly the kind of beefy superstar you'd expect to show up in these movies. However, Momoa made the utterly inspired decision not to play Dante as a roided-up tough guy... But as a preening peacock, a camp-gay supervillain who parades through the movie in a series of gaudy outfits. Momoa is clearly having the time of his life, gloriously hamming it up as a bad guy who relishes his own fabulousness. The character's flamboyance blends well with his sadism, allowing the ridiculous excess of his evil plan to be much more easily swallowed. The over-the-top queerness of the character is an implicit threat to the hyper-macho main characters, while also allowing the series to slyly indulge in its barely bubbling-under-the-surface homoeroticism more than ever. Momoa's The Joker by way of Rip Taylor performance enlivens the entire movie and makes it substantially more entertaining than it would've been otherwise. 

Which isn't to say that the movie's main attraction – its gravity defying action scenes – aren't thoroughly amusingly in their preposterousness. The first proper action scene involves Vin and the gang chasing a giant, flaming, neutron bomb through the streets of Rome. The climatic bridge shoot-out from part five is revived, this time with Vin doing far more superhuman acts. I really can't undersell how much I enjoyed the war wagon scene with Cena as well. There's some good fisticuffs too. Cipher's escape from Dante's ambush being the first time Charlize Theron's action chops have really had a chance to shine in this series. Brie Larson, dressed as Hillary Clinton in spiky punk heels, even gets a notable action scene to herself. The climax features Dom's iconic Charger diving out of an airplane and outrunning a massive fireball. Maybe it's not as fresh as any of the chaos from "Fast Five" or six but I'm not gonna lie. I enjoyed it. 

"Fast X" is definitely very self-aware of its status as an event blockbuster, the "Infinity Wars" of this franchise. It packs its extensive runtime with multiple high-profile cameos, and to further the "Infinity Wars" comparison, ends on a downbeat cliffhanger. While you can argue about the film's merits all you want, I guess I got wrapped up in its big, doofy charms. Whether that's largely thanks to Momoa's expert hamming or just me suddenly having a fondness for this ridiculous franchise, I suppose that's for others to figure out. I'd personally would put this above the last few installments and am absolutely on the hook for "Fast X-2" or "FUR11OUS" or whatever they call it. [7/10]

RECENT WATCHES: F9: The Fast Saga (2021)

Vin Diesel gets a lot of shit and probably not unfairly. However, one thing is undeniable: The man loves the movies. Diesel's belief in the power of the theatrical experience, how it can bring people together and entrance us all under one massive screen, made him one of the big stars pushing folks to go back to theaters following the COVID-19 pandemic. His insistence that films are best enjoyed on the big screen was surely a factor in "F9: The Fast Saga" being repeatedly delayed for two years until it was safe for theaters to open again. This perhaps saddled the sequel – also Justin Lin's return to the franchise that he had defined, which had arguably suffered in his absence – with expectations it could never live up to. "F9" was intended to be just another entry in this preposterous action series. Instead, it became one of the first big releases after life ostensibly returned to normal. All the muscle cars in the world might buckle under the weight of that, of reestablishing normalcy for millions of people all over the globe. 

Dom Torreto and Letty have retired on a quiet farm, raising their son Brian. That changes when old friends arrive with concerning news: Mr. Nobody, while transporting super-criminal Cipher to prison, was kidnapped by a mysterious agent. Dom quickly deduces that the responsible party is his long-lost brother, Jakob. Soon, the "Fast" team reassembles to chase after two halves of a device that can hack any computer system in the world. Jakob, a rogue agent with plans of world domination, is after the device too, as well as the young girl who can activate it. The mission will reunite them with friends and enemies they thought where gone and take the team around the world and beyond. 

During "F9's" quiet prologue on Dom and Letty's farm, his son asks the action hero who God is. This same moment highlights the cross medal that has become Dom's trademark symbol. Is this, an utterly ridiculous action sequel seemingly most concerned with absurd new ways to blow shit up, asking serious questions about the existence of the divine? That seems to be the case. During the first major action set piece, the series obnoxious comic relief Roman Pierce miraculously survives two events that should've killed him. What could have been a meta joke about the typical action protagonists' immunity to all injury becomes a reoccurring theme. Is the "Fast" team impossibly lucky or somehow being protected by a higher power? The spiritual side of the film reaches its apex during a moment where Dom seemingly dies for a minute and visits his father in the afterlife. Having faith and trusting in the powers-that-be does indeed lead our heroes through another set of improbable circumstances. 

This is, admittedly, a gutsy theme to introduce in a series that doesn't typically seem that concerned with deeper ideas. Inevitably, this premise eventually dovetails with the most prevalent theme in this franchise. Despite his highly memed on discussion of family, we learn in this film that Dom has never forgiven his brother for his apparent role in their father's death. The fear of losing loved ones, and the drive to protect his family no matter what, drives Dom more than ever. (This idea also emerges in a key character returning from the dead in fuzzily explained fashion.) Unsurprisingly, forgiveness is eventually offered to Jakob, despite his super villain status. If the "Fast" movies are about family, above all else, "F9" considers the actual sacrifices necessary to keep those bonds together. 

That I'm managing to find any heady themes at all inside "F9" is impressive, considering this is the entry in the franchise most detached from reality. Lin and his co-conspirators were determined to top the over-the-top action in the previous films. Early on, Dom is swinging his Charger over a gorge by tangling his front axel in a rope. Later, Dom pulls down part of the ceiling on his attackers, his action hero strength long since risen to the level of superhuman. By the end, "F9" pushes into the realm of science-fiction. Yes, this is the one where Tej and Roman fly a rocket-car into a space. That's a moment so deliriously unrealistic that it seems largely tongue-in-cheek, the franchise admitting its own ridiculousness. Somehow, this is more believable than the shenanigans involving an enormous super-magnet tossing people and cars all through a city that comprises much of the past act. 

While I have no issues with the "Fast" franchise's commitment to beyond-the-impossible action awesomeness, once again the constant doubling-down feels more exhausting than exhilarating. The final act becomes a tangled mess of double-crosses and betrayals, the vaguely defined MacGuffins driving the plot long since getting lost in the mix. The pyrotechnics go to such levels that the final image, of a massive armored bus flipping through the air, almost feels underwhelming compared to everything that came before. As in "The Fate of the Furious," the need to pack the movie as full of as much car-related mayhem as possible, alongside the needs of an ever-expanding cast, means the film concludes in a pile-up of set pieces and subplots. 

"F9" does push above its predecessor in one way. Charlize Theron's Cipher – back this time but not yet graduated to a member of the family – was a delightfully campy villain last time. Still, Dom having a morally ambiguous brother is a far better gimmick for an antagonist. The flashbacks are possibly the best thing about the sequel, expanding on the backstory of its hero and finally showing us the trauma that forged him. John Cena is clearly having a good time as a Bond-style supervillain. (The unlikeliness of a "Nordic strongman" like Cena being related to someone who looks like Vin Diesel is so absurd that the script has to comment on it.) Jakob's eventual heel-face turn, to borrow a pro-wrestling term, can be predicated from his first second on-screen. There is something satisfying in watching it unfold though. 

While far from a box office failure, "F9: The Fast Saga" did not join the billion-dollar club like the last two entries in the series. I don't know if this speaks to movie theaters' slow recovery from COVID or if the public is simply tiring of the turbo-charged antics of these movies. The novelty is definitely starting to fade, as the series focuses more on pushing their stunts further and juggling its wide-ranging family of characters. Despite its flaws, "F9" is still a reasonably entertaining time at the movies. I guess the ridiculous charms of these flicks have long since won me over by this point. [6/10]

RECENT WATCHES: The Fate of the Furious (2017)

Since the characters became millionaires at the end of “Fast Five,” there's really been no narrative reason for the “Fast & Furious” franchise to roll on. Not that anyone is making these movies for the art, at this point. “Furious 7” made it into the billion dollar club, completely insuring that we'd be getting more of these ridiculous spectacles. F. Gary Gray, right off the success of “Straight Outta Compton,” was recruited to steer yet another entry in this turbo-charged series. The amusingly entitled "The Fate of the Furious" would roar into theaters in April of 2017. It would be another massive hit, also grossing over a billion dollars at the international box office. Depending on who you ask though, this is when the wheels start to fall off the “Fast” machine.

While on their second honeymoon in Havana with Letty, Dom is approached by a mysterious woman known only as Cipher. Meanwhile, Luke Hobbs recruits the rest of the gang to capture a EMP device from an extremist faction in Europe. That's when Dom appears, turns on his make-shift family, and steals the EMP. Mr. Nobody pulls the familiar players together to figure out what has happened and defeat Cipher. Hobbs ends up in jail with Shaw, the two eventually busting out together and joining the mission. Nobody knows the reason Dom is working for Cipher: She has the son he didn't know existed and is blackmailing him to be part of her terrorist plot to take over the world.

As has often been joked about and referenced, “family” has emerged as the uniting theme of the latter-day “Fast” movies. Having Dom switch sides, seemingly betraying his family (but actually out of further obligation to them), pushes that idea further. It's also the exact kind of comic book style plotting I've come to expect from this increasingly far-fetched universe. However, there's a problem with inserting such a standard “What if the good guy switches side?” set-up. Without the fatherly figure of Dom Toretto to head this familia, things begin to feel a bit aimless. Forcing Vin Diesel back into the stoic tough guy mode he started in robs him of his charm. He seems so checked-out through large parts of this movie, one scene further removing his humanity by placing him in bulky armor and a mask, like a car-driving Jason Voorhees or Iron Man. Turning Dom into a traitor sullies the hang-out movie vibes that propels this series.

That story turn also represents another clear phenomenon: Writer Chris Morgan starting to run out of ideas. Plot ranks somewhere around the level of catering in importance to these films. However, there's no denying that the story is a mess. The exact nature of the world-endangering MacGuffin seems to change from scene-to-scene sometimes. It's obviously nothing more than a plot device to get the crew from one set piece to the next. The finale takes place in a Siberian submarine port overtaken by some other occupying forces, one example of the kind of plot points that come at the audiences nearly as fast as the cars do. Dom asking a favor of a mysterious new character or the sudden appearances of jet packs are other examples. The vehicular mayhem has always led the rest of the plot around in these movies. The action scenes driving the story, instead of the other way around, starts to feel like a problem.

Balancing out such a large cast continues to be an issue too. The subplots involving Dom's child, Hobbs, or the Shaws sometimes feel like another movie interceding on this one. There are other new characters thrown in too. The least inspired of which is charisma void Scott Eastwood as Mr. Nobody's sidekick. The best of which is Charlize Theron as Cipher, the seductive villain. Like everything else, she's a ridiculous character. The kind of pseudo-profound dialogue Theron has to rattle off – such as a strangled metaphor about watering holes and crocodiles – is truly baffling. Yet Theron is a pro, bringing a sinister curl of her lips to each absurd line, making an otherwise generic villain – also revealed to be the Author of All Dom's Pain, another bad cliché of modern blockbuster writing – way more appealing than she'd otherwise be.

Despite the tangled mess of a screenplay and a number of questionable narrative choices, “The Fate of the Furious” still works when centering its hyper-macho cast of goofy bros. I'm not talking about Tyrese's Rome, who becomes more annoying and inessential with every film, or Michelle Rodriguez' Letty, dragged along by the plot. Instead, the cock-measuring contest between Dwayne Johnson's Hobbs and Jason Statham's Shaw is definitely the highlight of the film. The constant trash-talking between these two, which immediately escalates to homoerotic tension and then mutual respect, is highly amusing. That's what you get when you paired two physical titans with gallons of charm against each other. That unexpected cameo also proves that letting extremely charming performers bounce off each other is the real strength of these films.

That brings me to the action sequences. There are definitely some good moments. Rodriguez gets a good one-on-one fight with a goon, that ends in a nicely grisly way. Statham and Johnson's escape from cyber-jail features their respective fighting styles – brute force and parkour – contrasting nicely. Statham is at the center of the film's other best moment, where he has to kill lots of creeps while protecting a baby. 

The movie actually peaks early as far as its vehicular stunts go. The opening street race, where Dom pushes a jalopy way past its limit, is by far the best car moment in the film. Later scenes, such as when Cipher's super-hacking turns every thing with wheels into a weapon, feel a bit desperate. This franchise falling to its need to make cars the currency of every action scene. (Dom managing to kill a submarine with a muscle car is the normal level of desperate for this series.) The extremely long climax, and the unending vehicular mayhem it involves, started to bore me quickly. Explosions and twisted metal aren't enough sometimes. 

You don't see much of F. Gary Gray's personal style in this one. A rare dutch angle or some smooth cinematography for a few seconds is about all you get. Otherwise, macho melees, CGI chaos, and lots of pyrotechnics characterizes this installment. Even when those moments are effectively done, “The Fate of the Furious” feels a bit self-conscious about its desire to always top itself and earlier entries. That's led to a scrambled script and repetitive action that too often puts the best elements in the backseat. [6/10]

Director Report Card: James Wan (2015)

7. Furious 7 (2015)

Over the course of four movies, Justin Lin managed to transform the “Fast and the Furious” series from a humble trilogy of immediately dated car flicks to one of the most popular action/adventure franchises on the planet. The fifth and sixth installment especially moved past the simple stories of street racing into elaborate heist plots with enormous action set pieces. This naturally made Lin one of the most in-demand directors around. He was so in-demand that another studio scooped him up for their own blockbuster, Lin jumping to Paramount to make “Star Trek Beyond.” This opened the door for another filmmaker of Asian descent to enter. James Wan would make the leap from horror films to blockbuster cinema with “Furious 7,” proving he wasn't only talented with low budget tales of ghosts and serial killers. It would be a great move for Wan, beginning the next chapter of his career.

Picking up from “Fast & Furious 6's” mid-credits teaser, “Furious 7” begins with the simplest of set-ups. Deckard Shaw wants revenge on Dom Torreto for what he did to his brother, Owen. First, he kills Han, then he attacks Hobbs, and lastly sets his sights on Brian O'Conor and his family. Dom rides into action, taking on Shaw personally. That's when the mysterious government agent, Mr. Nobody, steps in. He promises to help Dom take down Shaw if his team recovers a super-powerful surveillance device known as God's Eye, along with the hacker who created it. The “Fast” family are thrusts into an international adventure, involving terrorists and drones, while Dom and Shaw prepare for their inevitable face-off. 

By its seventh entry, the “Fast” franchise has long since outgrown its humble roots as a series about street racing. The last three installments established these movies are international affairs with more than a passing resemblance to Bond or Ocean. “Furious 7” pushes this conceit further. Throughout this adventure, the Torreto gang travels from London, to America to Japan, Azerbaijan, and Abu Dhabi, before heading back to Los Angeles for the big finale. Considering these movies have always been popular overseas, it's not surprising that the studio would insist “Furious 7” be more of a global adventure than ever before. 

In order to facilitate such a globe-trotting adventure, what probably should've been a simple revenge plot gets ridiculously convoluted. I guess the premise of  Shaw seeking revenge on Dom and the gang wouldn't have provided enough material for a 139 minute run time. Instead, the story's primary antagonist disappears for long stretches while the heroes pursue a practically unrelated plot device. Oh sure, there are token attempts to tie Shaw in with the entire God's Eye story line. They feel tenuous at best. “Furious 7” sometimes feels like two separate ideas for a sequel where hastily smashed together, in order to make a bigger – and, consequently, more crowded and contrived – follow-up.

Why screenwriter Chris Morgan – who has been shepherding this franchise since the third film – felt the need to get quite so complex with the plot is something I can only speculate on. The fact that this, the most ridiculously exaggerated of blockbusters, has to involve advanced surveillance technology and war drones raises some question. Are we so numb to the every day presence of these things, these aspect of the dystopian future we're all living in, that general audiences don't blink at their inclusion? Or is this some sort of half-assed commentary on the state of the world? It's hard to say, as no clear point is made about these things. Other than they are bad, I guess. At this point, the “Fast” movies are basically science fiction, making me wonder why Morgan and Wan didn't simply push the MacGuffin technology further into the realm of the impossible, rather than reminding us of U.S. war crimes in our goofball action movie.

How goofball is this sequel exactly? Paul Walker running up the side of an armored truck as it falls off a cliff is among the least memorable sights here. By this point, the “Fast” films are definitely self-aware of their own reputation for ridiculous bullshit. This is presumably why the movie commits to the utterly insane image of the heroes parachuting out of an airplane while inside their trademark cars. After all, it's accepted knowledge that Dom Torreto has superpowers as long as he's behind the wheel of an automobile. That's why he survives ramping off a cliff side, plummeting down the mountain or later using his vehicle as a battering ram against the villain's helicopter. The trademark action set pieces involve a souped-up sports car rocketing between not one but two skyscrapers. This level of CGI tomfoolery, watching the movie top itself in terms of over-the-top mayhem, is exactly the point of the franchise by this point. 

I can appreciate some utterly absurd, digital action shenanigans as much as the next guy. The one-on-one fight scenes continue to prove to be the bigger distraction here. The movie knows what side its bread is buttered on, by having its two biggest action heroes beat the shit out of each other within the opening minutes. The Rock and Jason Statham toss each other through glass walls and into desks, body slams and flying punches a-plenty going down. Of course, Vin and Statham have to duke it out before the end too, which they do in a similarly acrobatic melee. However, a surprise fight between an otherwise wooden Ronda Rousey, brought in as a special guest fighter primarily to grapple with Michelle Rodriguez, is a real highlight. It's certainly more believable than Paul Walker besting Tony Jaa, one of the great on-screen martial artists of our time, in a close quarters battle.

At this point, the size of the "Fast" family has started to grow a bit ungainly. There's about ten or eleven central characters here. Smartly, the script sidelines a few of them. Hobbs is laid up in the hospital for most of the movie, though the Rock is still available to kick some ass, carry a massive gun, and deliver macho one-liners. Jordana Brewster's Mia Torreto and Elsa Pataky's Elena are more-or-less written out of the story. Despite that, juggling the remaining cast members is getting shaky. Ludacris' Tej doesn't have much to do beyond press buttons behind a computer console, while Tyrese's Rome has officially been reduced to the role of dumb-ass comic relief. The jokes he's given are so clunky that you really wonder why he's being kept around at this point.

These cast are always expanding too. Kurt Russell drops in as Mr. Nobody, the government liaison. It's a role anyone could've played but Russell's ability to turn the hoariest of exposition into poetry elevates it greatly. Though the movie kindly gives him one action scene to himself. The rest of the new additions aren't as memorable. Nathalie Emmanuel is cute and all as Ramsey, the super-hacker at the plot's center, but she's not much more than a plot device. That's at least more than Djimon Hounsou gets, as the film's secondary baddie. All he really does is stand around and look intimidating, a total waste of Hounou's talents.

Ultimately, these are only minor supporting characters. When Jason Statham made his cameo appearance during the end credits of “Fast & Furious 6,” it was a moment designed to get a huge cheer out of the audience. Statham is of the same generation of action stars as Diesel and Dwayne Johnson. Getting all these modern icons in a movie together was a huge deal, obviously. Placing Statham as the antagonist against the rest of the team was another smart move, allowing the tough guy to do his thing. He swaggers through multiple scenes, glaring and coughing one-liners in that distinctive accent. The kind of indelible screen presence Statham has adds so much to a role that would've been utterly forgettable in anyone else's hands. He's an invaluable addition to the film.

“Furious 7” would become the biggest hit in the franchise yet, the first of the series to cross the billion dollar mark worldwide. It's easy to assume that the non-stop carnage of the last act might have something to do with this. International audiences are known to crave explosions and shoot-outs. Yet the continuous mayhem of the last act is honestly a bit deafening after a while. There's only so many scenes of machine guns shattering concrete and cars swerving around fireballs I can take before I get a bit numb to it. At over two hours long, “Furious 7” definitely wares the viewer down a bit before it's over. 

I think another factor, however, might've given this installment the extra novelty to make it the biggest of the series. We're all well aware of Paul Walker's unexpected passing before the film was released, ironically in a fast car not unlike any of the ones his character drives in this movie. As much as “Furious 7” is preoccupied with pyrotechnics, it's also something of a tribute to Walker. The role his character's family plays is repeatedly emphasized. A lengthy epilogue is inserted obviously as a way to honor Walker and send his character off. It's an emotionally overwrought moment, that seems weirdly maudlin if you somehow aren't aware of Walker's passing. It's nice too. Oversized sentimentality has always been the secret weapons of these movies and I'm glad the time was taken to make this ending meaningful.

While there are signs that James Wan brought his particular style to “Furious 7,” it's obviously this was a work-for-hire gig for him. He wanted to prove to studio execs that he could be trusted with the keys to a massive action franchise. Considering “Furious 7” went on to become one of the highest grossing movies of all time, I think he more than succeeded in that goal. Like all of these sublimely silly motion pictures, “Furious 7” is definitely entertaining. It's too absurd not to be. The constant need to top itself in terms of collateral damage and the struggles of balancing out such an overgrown cast does weigh the movie down some, even if Statham's sinew and some giant action shenanigans got me to smile too. [Grade: B-]

RECENT WATCHES: Fast & Furious 6 (2013)

By 2013, the Marvel Cinematic Universe had come to rule the multiplexes. Other studios were eager to copy that successful formula. While there's been no shortage of superhero epics in the last decade, Universal managed to retrofit the “The Fast and the Furious” into something like their own Marvel universe  in one important way. That would be the mid-credit teasers setting up the next adventure. “Fast Five” ended in a fairly final place but a last minute scene happily set up another installment. Two years later, that promise would be delivered on with “Fast & Furious 6.” Justin Lin was back behind the camera, with the all the important cast members back too. Predictably, it was another enormous hit but could it top the last one in terms of action?

Hobbs is pursuing an internationally wanted super-criminal by the name of Owen Shaw. Shaw is attempting to assemble a “Nightshade” device, a weapon that can shut off all power in a country, and only needs one more part to complete it. He decides to lure Dom Torreto and the rest of his crew out of retirement to help him. He accomplishes this with one important clue. Letty, Dom's presumed dead wife, is part of Shaw's team. This convinces Dom, Brian, and the rest to gather in London and take down this newest threat, all while attempting to figure out what happened to Letty.

We're now six installments into this turbo-charged franchise and it's built up a surprisingly lovable ensemble. One of the simplest joys of “Fast & Furious 6” is simply watching these characters bounce off each other. The film delights in pairing these guys up in novel ways. Such as Rome and Han discussing the nuances of relationships or Rome and Tej shit-talking while playing around with a massive spear gun. Gal Gadot's Giselle – definitely the least well-defined of this troupe –  gets some charming moments, when interacting with Sung Kang or new recruit to the team, Gina Carano. We've built up enough of an attachment to this group that seeing them interact and screw around is as much fun as the enormous action set-pieces.

Something the “Fast” films have lacked, up to this point, are truly memorable enemies. The last two movies especially – I'm excluding Hobbs from this, as he eventually joins the good guys, "Dragonball Z" style – had indistinct crime bosses as their antagonists. “Furious 6” manages to cook up a supervillain worthy of its increasingly overpowered heroes. Luke Evans – who Hollywood was really trying to turn into a star in the 2010s – appears as Owen Shaw. He's a super-capable bad-ass with specialized gadgets and weapons at his disposal, including hockey pucks he can attached to other cars to control them. Shaw also has a team of henchmen identified as evil counterparts of Dom's crew. Evans can certainly handle being a ruthless baddie with a sinister sneer, despite the script providing him with little in the way of depth.

Not that character depth is what we watch these movies for. No, we sit down for a “Fast” movie because we want to see some gravity defying stunts. “Furious 6” certainly delivers in that regard. Shaw's coolest gadget is an armored dune-buggy designed to launch other cars into the air, which happens repeatedly. I really never get tired of seeing cars corkscrew through the air. Probably the movie's trademark sequence involves a tank being unleashed on a freeway. This is a sequence that only escalates in absurdity as it goes along. Countless cars are pancaked under the tank treads, a muscle car is slowly shredded, and the climax to the scene – involving Vin Diesel sailing through the air in slow-motion – is hysterical. As memorable as this particular sequence is, I'm glad the movie made room for some close quarters melees too. It would've been a waste to slot Carano and Joe Taslim in the cast and not having them do some fighting. Taslim's fight scene, which involves kicking Tyrese through multiple planes of glass, is probably the best.

Melodrama is nothing new to this particular franchise. “Furious 6” features that most hackneyed of soap opera plot devices: Amnesia. Letty is working with the bad guys, and was thought dead, because she has no memories of her past with Dom. This is a solid way to retcon Michelle Rodriguez's clumsy death in the previous movie, while also giving her a juicier character arc. This is far from the movie's only narrative contrivances. There's a lengthy subplot that drops Brian into prison, a long ways to go just to confirm a simple plot point. Because movies were still ripping off “The Dark Knight” at this point, the bad guy gets captured on-purpose as part of his master plan. I don't think a “Fast and the Furious” movie needs a story that takes this many detours is my point.

While its cast of characters are doubtlessly a benefit to this film, by the final act, I was losing track of where everyone was a little bit. The elaborate finale, which involves dragging a massive air bus to the ground, has each member of Dom's team sparing off with their own partner or adversary. So much is happening, with the film cutting back and forth between each confrontation, that you feel a bit overwhelmed. The obvious money-shots in these scenes, such as Vin and the Rock taking down a musclebound baddie together, get lost in the shuffle of so much happening.

Despite some serious flaws, “Fast & Furious 6” still places high in my personal ranking of this franchise. The action sequences are really fabulous, with the movie balancing genuinely impressive stunt work and amusingly absurd digital fakery. The cast is still fun to hang out with and the script provides a suitably intimidating adversary. I don't really ask for much more from these films than that. [7/10]

RECENT WATCHES: Fast Five (2011)

“Fast & Furious” ended on a cliffhanger, suggesting Universal was very confident in the retooled franchise. The film was another hit, paving the way for “Fast Five” two years later. This seems to be the point where public opinion on the series started to shift. The first four were dismissed by critics and divisive among action fans. They had passionate defenders but a large group derided the “Fast” films as dumb-ass shit for dumb-ass shitheads. “Fast Five,” however, successfully transformed this into a series that reveled in its own ridiculous awesomeness. This kind of beyond-the-beyond audacity – which recalled the over-the-top action classics of the eighties – quickly won over a lot of folks I trust, really getting my attention. 

After busting Dom out of prison, the Torettos and Brian relocate to Rio de Janeiro. In need of cash, they agree to a risky heist aboard a moving train. It quickly goes pear-shaped but after the gang makes off with an especially valuable car. Inside the vehicle is a chip containing all the financial information of Hernan Reyes, the most powerful drug lord in Brazil. After Mia announces she's pregnant with Brian's child, Dom decides they are going to steal Reyes' millions as one last job. A group of new and old faces are called in to assist such an ambitious heist. Meanwhile, DSS agent Luke Hobbs – believing the Toretto gang murdered several DEA agents – pursues the racers ruthlessly. With Reyes' men also on their trail, things quickly escalate. 

The fourth “Fast” movie moved the series in the direction of globe-trotting action extravaganza. The fifth entry presents a more unified vision for the franchise by literally bringing together the divergent casts from the previous films. Matt Schulze's Vince returns for the first time since the original. “Tokyo Drift's” Han becomes a major player, following his cameo in part four. Ludacris' Tej and Tyrese's Rome from “2 Fast 2 Furious” join the rest of the team. Even Gal Gadot's Gisele from the last one comes back. More familiar faces show-up during the mid-credits scene. When so many long-running series are happy to slam the reboot button, I'll admit that “Fast Five” embracing the history of the franchise is charming. 

If I knew nothing else about these movies going into it, I knew that it was all about one uniting theme: Family. This really comes to the forefront in this installment. Dom agrees to one last job precisely because he wants his little sister and in-coming nephew to be taken care of. Vince is immediately forgiven for any past transgression and accepted back into the group entirely because he's part of Torreto's found family. That idea is presumably why this installment brings back so many established characters, to emphasize that family isn't just about blood but about who you choose. As goofy as this premise is in execution – some of these folks have known each other for a few days – it can't help but play out as kind of sweet. Vin's big speech around barbecue and beer... It's cute, ya know? Makes it feel like you're hanging out with these misfits and goofballs too.

Of course, to go up against such a memorable group of characters, you need an especially colorful antagonist. The film found that in the form of Dwayne Johnson, pro-wrestler turned one of the biggest movie stars in the world. He plays Hobbs, a super-tough agent sent to hunt down our heroes. The role utilizes Johnson's best attributes. That would be his massive physical presence and his way with a trash-talking one-liner. Hobbs isn't only a mountain of a man, clearly capable of taking down any opponent he encounters. He's also a fast-talker, casually hurling insults and colorful turns-of-phrases at those around him. In other words, the Rock was exactly the kind of bigger-than-life character necessary to play an opposing force 

The movie is well aware of what the Rock's presence means too. One of the show-stopping set pieces is a melee between Johnson and Vin Diesel, which features both men getting tossed through multiple walls. That's one of my favorite action beats in the film and also one of its more grounded. This is, after all, a movie that begins with a car jack-knifing a bus and causing it to flip through the air several times. That's not the real opening set piece either. That would be a ludicrous – but not Ludicris, he shows up later – sequence involving a truck, a train, a bridge, and a slow-mo dive into a river. The movie never quite tops that moment but its finale, where a massive bank vault dragged behind a muscle car and weaponized, sure as hell tries. Most impressively, the movie uses more practical effects than you might think. That gives these ridiculous stunt sequences a lot more heft and weight, making them exactly the kind of crazy action filmmaking I'd admire.

Built around these over-the-top sequences of vehicular mayhem is a fairly standard heist movie. I think anybody familiar with the genre knows that the plan set in place early in the film will naturally go wrong. The movie wouldn't be telling us this information if it didn't plan on subverting it. What's most fun about heist pictures is watching a group of bandits with highly specialized skills working out a complex scheme to solve some convoluted problem. “Fast Five” provides us with just that, as Dom's gang perfects a number of technique and wacky schemes to break into the vault central to the story. A moment involving exploding toilets is especially amusing.

“Fast Five” really feels like it could've been the final installment in the series, leaving all of our misfit heroes in a comfortable place. Of course, things were really only beginning for this gang at this point. If I've been a little baffled by the massive popularity of these movies up to now, “Fast Five” is when it really started to click into place for me. It's big, loud, and dumb but I can't deny that I didn't enjoy myself the whole time. [7/10]