All the roads lead to this. Every suburban street, crooked lane, bustling highway and every goddamn bypass ultimately lead to Vin Diesel driving a car through the flaming nose of a cargo plane. Four-time Furious director, Justin Lin, wins by an inch and a mile in the sixth installment of the Fast & Furious.
Fast & Furious has evolved into its own genre – auto-heavy, hip-hop-fuelled action films based on a surefire crowd-pleasing formula: certified “dayum” rides, budget-blowing stunts and a whole lot o’ Ludacris on the soundtrack. Fast & Furious 6, sticking to a NOS-heavy recipe, gives the fans exactly what they want, from handbrake-destroying London street racing to Vin Diesel victoriously catching Michelle Rodriguez midair between highways after being thrown off a moving army tank. Top notch.
Producer and leading man Diesel returns to his best-known role outside The (abominable) Pacifier, our tough-criminal-with-a-heart-o-gold Dominic Toretto. The still-attractive Paul Walker joins him in the passenger seat as Brian O’Conner, now familying with Mia (Jordana Brewster) and still overusing the word ‘bro’. Perhaps the most celebrated return for Furious fans is that of Rodriguez, rising from the ashes of Fast & Furious (fourth installment) and wearing the oldest trick in the rehashed character book: memory loss. Classic.
Former Fast & Furious friends also return to Ride or Die another day. Somewhere around Fast no, the series took a slight Italian Job turn, dragging favourites like Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges and Tyrese ‘Tyrese’ Gibson out of retirement to form Torreto’s Eleven. Dwayne Johnson dishes out the ’tude again in Fast & Furious 6 as DSS Agent Luke Hobbs, with crime fighting mind-bogglers like “I want to come crashing down on them like the Walls of Jericho.”
The Fast & Furious series is the guilty pleasure of Hollywood cinema, the Friday night Domino’s, nay the Cheezel of filmmaking. It’s questionably nourishing, indulgent fun that we’ll keep coming back for with grease and cheese all over our faces, because we know that this shit’s gonna be awesome.
3.5/5 stars
BY SHANNON CONNELLAN
Fast & Furious is in cinemas now.
