Fast Five : A Fast Review

Fast Five is, quite possibly, the most fun Fast and The Furious movie that I have seen in quite a while. Quite relatedly, it is also the least Fast and The Furious looking movie in the series. To be fair, there aren't a lot of places where you can drive in the Favella. The movie is like a pot session with friends. As long as you don't try to check the facts and maintain a healthy dose of not-give-a-fucks, you're sure to have fun.

Let it be known however that Fast Five is the last movie you'd like to watch if you want to learn about Rio De Janiero, because if you'd do that, you'd think all Brazilians are either armed with a firearm, or dirt poor, or corrupt cops, or all of the above. It's so stupid, you'd think if people were paying attention they'd be crying racist by now. (Hint: nobody cares)

Did I mention most of the stuff in the movie don't make sense? Here are a few of them:

1. A good portion of the preparation movie is about trying to negotiate a hairpin curve to avoid camera detection. Which they don't use anyway.

2. Considering these are people who are on the run, it's surprising that they were able to get cars AT ALL. Where do these people get the money? ANd if they do have that amount of money, why do they still have to live like they're gonna starve if they stop boosting cars? Nevermind the fact that Vin Diesel was able to somehow smuggle his old car into his luggage halfway across the Americas. I can't even smuggle a toe clipper onboard.

3. At one point, Vin Diesel's character comes out in the open to taunt Dwayne Johnson's character. They hang out in a party which turns out to be the most heavily armed rave crowd I have seen in my life. And for some reason, despite Vin going to Rio for the first time in his life, these people somehow feel indebted to him, to the point that they'd willingly put a gun in the face of an AMERICAN PARAMILITARY OUTFIT WITH MUSCLES THAT ARE BIG ENOUGH TO REQUIRE LICENSES TO CARRY AROUND. What's Vin's explanation? "THIS. IS. BRAZIL!" What the fuck.

4. At the start, when Vin turned against their co-criminals and was escaping with Paul Walker, he sped alongside the train so Paul could hop off on the car, only to have it fly off a goddamn cliff. Note that there was no real need for Paul to hop off. Or for Vin to crash the car. Vin could have stopped the goddamn car, and Paul could ahve gotten off at the next station.

4b. While we're at it, after dunking the car into a body of shallow water and SURVIVING, Paul and Vin walk up to the shore to find enemies who *GASP* were waiting there ALL ALONG, as though they expected the two to do something THAT STUPID AND SURVIVE. Either they're psychic or they're the world's most optimistic latinos, I don't know. AND even then, seeing as falling off a cliff takes seconds, that meant these bad guys travelled faster than freefalling bodies to reach the bottom of the cliff in time to pose like machos looking for gringos to kill.


5. Nevermind the magical vault chase scene and the spectacular absence of any rational laws of physics. That shit was just too ridiculous. Added to that, the totally unnecessary police car race scene. It took a while for me to realize I wasn't watching an arcade racing game replay.

4. Towards the end, they finally get the dough. It's all in Brazilian tender. How the fuck do you smuggle that out of the country?

The whole movie feels like it's Ocean's 11 if Danny Ocean was an overbuffed simpleton. In addition to his ragtag gang of specialists, he has also enlisted the help of "FUCK YOU AUDIENCE". It's a heist that pays less attention to the meticulousness that goes into an elaborate heist and replaces it with "FUCK YEAH" moments that defies logic and kills braincells at the same time. You'd be an idiot to try and take this thing seriously. Serioulsy.

That said Fast5 is solid, fucking stupid, and fun.