Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

After they killed off my girl Michelle Rodriguez in ‘Fast Four’ I had stated that I’m through with the Fast and Furious movies since there is absolutely no reason for me to see them anymore… unless… they find way to squeeze in Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson whom we here at the FCU also love in a totally non-gay way. Still, I was going to pass because what more can they do with these movies? Besides, if I know a couple things about my fellow Americans and their movie watching tendencies, it is that they love gay pirates and they love them some Fast and Furious so ‘reviewing’ one of these things is about as pointless as an endeavor can get. Yet there I was at a screening watching this movie, a movie that is complete and total utter nonsense to the point that ‘Lord of the Rings’ seems authentic by comparison. But we all know this already, so just sit back, turn off that pesky brain and enjoy the pretty people in the pretty cars going real fast.

As the story goes Brian (Paul Walker), Dominic (Vin Diesel) and Mia (Jordanna Brewster) are on the run after the spectacular jail break at the end of the previous movie, with Brian and Mia hiding out in Rio with ‘Fast One’ returnee Vince as played by my St. Louis homeboy Matt Schulze. Vince has a gig, Dom told Brian and Mia to lay low but Brian and Mia need cash so Brian makes the call. Besides, Vince said it was an easy gig. Of course it is.

Dom shows up in time for this gig which involves stealing some cars off a speeding passenger train. It’s crazy, but it’s Fast and it’s Furious so we don’t worry about these things. Of course this easy gig goes straight to hell with Brian and Dom being in the captive of Brazilian kingpin Mr. Reyes as played by actor Joaquim de Almeida who has played this singular role so often in so many movies that I bet he wakes in the morning believing himself to be a South American gangster kingpin.

Somehow these two get free, heaven only knows how, and now they have to figure out why Reyes wanted this one car so badly that Mia drove off the train to a sequestered spot. The reason Reyes needs this particular car is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS but you guessed it, it’s fast and it is furious so we will move on.

The problems mount for our anti-heroes as super badass, super tough talking, super huge FBI top cop Luke Hobbs (Johnson) is in Rio and on the case with his team of equally angry agents and his personally requested translator, krazy hot rookie Brazilian cop Officer Elsa Neves (Elena Pataky). Her being hot has nothing to do with the request, just a byproduct of being an honorable cop in a Fast and Furious movie.

So Brian and Dom have decided to rip off Reyes, steal his millions and retire. It’s complicated. They get the band back together which consists of, among others, Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson) from ‘Fast Two’ and Han Lue (Sun Kang) who was killed in ‘Fast Three’ but resurrected briefly as a different character in ‘Fast Four’.  Maybe.  I'm not sure about that.  The heist is a complicated one, damn near impossible considering Reyes owns all of Brazil and all of the police officers except for the hot one working for Hobbs, and there is the oppressive issue of Officer Hobbs who has no other mission in life outside of bringing down O’Connor and Toretto. There is no way, I mean NO WAY they can pull this off. Please… it’s time to get Fast and Furious baby.

So I’m reading a little forum where a young man is going off on this movie, politely mind you, that this movie made no freaking sense and he’s laying out his arguments and every single one of his arguments has merit. Nonetheless, despite the fact this young man appeared to be intelligent, we must question this because you don’t go into a Fast and Furious forum and attack a Fast and Furious movie. On the Internet. Just like the movie that precedes this one I can’t call ‘Fast Five’ a good movie because it’s just far too stupid. On most occasions I would bring up evidence to support that blanket statement but mentioning one stupid thing would force me to bring up second stupid thing and lead to third and so on and so on, thus leading to a five page article and so we will not even bother.

But here’s the thing about this stupid movie… after about five minutes in it became evident that the only thing that was on director Justin Lin’s mind in this movie was entertaining us, and just like the last one, he succeeded even though this version of ‘Fast and Furious’ had far less drag racing and more over the top conventional crazy action. Speaking of the action, it is almost non-stop, the cast is polished and understands completely the kind of bizarro universe they are trapped in within this movie, there’s enough humor to let you know that none of this is being taken too terribly serious and of course we have the wall smashing, glass breaking, testosterone fueled mano-a-mano battle-off between The Rock and Vin Diesel. To be honest, I think I’d rather get pummeled by Vin Diesel as opposed to Dwayne Johnson.

If you want to call ‘Fast Five’ stupid, ridiculous, nonsensical and intellectually deadening… I can’t argue with you. And as I look back to my past comments about previous ‘Fast and Furious’ films, I seem to be saying this same thing over and over again, but I also seem to ultimately enjoy these movies. It doesn’t look like there’s anywhere for ‘Fast Six’ to go, but since the American people seem to love this nonsense I’m sure we are going to get more of this nonsense and I’m sure I’ll enjoy that nonsense as well. Heaven help our society.