FURIOUS 7

The Fast and the Furious movies have always been about family for those involved, both on and off the set. Not just blood relatives, but friends who become so close that they become more than just a friendship. The unthinkable happened when the F&F family lost actor Paul Walker in a tragic car accident during the production of Furious 7. What do you do when one of the stars of the series is down and out? As they say, the show must go on and the final result is a fitting tribute and if need be, an end to the series.

The film takes place immediately following the events of Fast & Furious 6. In retaliation for the death of one of his own, Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) assembles his “quasi-A-Team” of drivers to take down Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), the brother of the previous movie’s big bad, Owen. Receiving help from a mysterious man with all of the answers (played by a very underused Kurt Russell), the team must recoup a tracking device known as “God’s Eye.” Using it, they will be able to find Shaw and keep it from falling into the wrong hands.

Diesel mumbles his way through this film, irritating me to a level I didn’t think possible, but he exudes the tough guy presence needed for a film about fast cars and stealing stuff. Toretto is the star of this film, reducing Walker’s Brian O’Connor to a supporting role. Being that this is a continuation of the previous movie, the terrible amnesia story line with Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) is still taking place in this installment. I repeat, what bogged down the last film is still happening in this one. However, part of the salvation of Furious 7 is that the best characters make a return and are the central focus of the film.

Statham’s Shaw is under-developed and evil enough to fit right at home with the rest of the brainless action. Frankly, we don’t need a backstory or good reason for him to do what he’s doing. In a movie that has cars falling out of the back of a plane, does a good motive really matter? The action sequences are truly something to behold. A chase sequence across a two-lane road throws everything including the “kitchen sink” into what’s likely to be one of the best car chases of the year. Every character is utilized perfectly but the movie doesn’t quite get up to that level again. Once you have cars flying out of a plane, it’s hard to do something that’s more spectacular.

The big question on everyone’s mind is how were the filmmakers able to work around the death of one of their lead actors? Given the cards they were dealt, the crew did an admirable job of trying to make a good movie while honoring Walker’s memory. The “smoke and mirrors” used to achieve this become very obvious during the film’s climax and in scenes involving Jordana Brewster. Most of her work was done at the end of production and had to use Walker’s siblings as stand-ins. 

As fun as this film is, it takes itself far too seriously. Dwayne Johnson gets a small amount of screen time and Kurt Russell’s Mr. Nobody is contained within act II of the film. Both actors clearly understand the subject matter and they are arguably the most fun to watch on screen. Ironically enough, they are also the two most underused characters in the cast. Luckily enough, Mr. Nobody steals the show with his very vocal love for Belgian Ale.

I fear that the magic captured in Fast 5 simply can’t be repeated again. The series’ new direction of high-octane heist movie was a thrilling and novel idea but seems to have been played out by stories that take themselves, for the most part, too seriously. How much larger can these movies get before they are ridiculous, even by their own genre’s standards?