Action star Vin Diesel and director Justin Lin: what else can they bring to the Fast & Furious franchise? Going strong for 20 years now, the franchise has seen just about everything in terms of physics-defying vehicular stunts: a blinding array of drifts, floats, skids, jumps and so on, since the first movie released back in 2001. And it’s all great fun to watch, especially if you’re a confirmed action movie junkie. Nobody expects much from the film’s other areas; nobody expects to remember a line of dialogue or much by the way of character development. As a racetrack colleague reminds protagonist Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) early on in F9, “We’re all stuck together doing laps in this circle”.
The pressure in terms of set pieces and stunt co-ordination, however, continues to rise with every movie and F9 is no different — from the word go, it’s quite aware of the spectacle it must put up, both as fan service and as de rigueur expectations from a Fast & Furious movie. Luckily, Lin delivers yet again, for F9 is chock-full of (some would say overstuffed) breathless, death-defying, gravity-defeating action involving racecars, ‘magnet planes’ and even a ludicrous (but surprisingly funny) outer space plot deep into the third act.
As befits the treasure trove of Vin Diesel ‘family’ memes that have now flooded the internet, F9 introduces us to yet another member of the extended Toretto family: Dom’s younger brother Jakob (John Cena), a rogue ex-Special Forces agent, a superspy who also happens to be a trained assassin, precision driver and extreme sports aficionado. Lin knows that Jakob is his trump card for the movie, and the character’s physical prowess is essentially, limitless. He zip-lines through central London, wrestles WWE-style on top of an eighteen-wheeler going at a zillion miles an hour, and pulls off parkour moves at the drop of a hat—basically, it’s everything an action star like John Cena dreams of in a role (although Cena is capable of more, as his comic turn in the Psych TV series and movies show us).
F9 revolves around Jakob’s bid to steal a (predictably) world-order-upending military device called Project Ares, which can enable him to take over any weapons system anywhere. We learn that before the events of the movie, Jakob attacked Mr Nobody’s (Kurt Russell, reprising his role) plane mid-air, capturing the ever-slippery terrorist Cipher (Charlize Theron, masterful in an undemanding cameo). Jakob is being financed by self-described ‘spoilt rich prick’ Otto (Thue Rasmussen) whose father is an East European dictator, making Otto ‘more than regular-people rich’.
As the Toretto crew, led by new parents Dom and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) regroups, we meet the usual suspects again: squabbling comic reliefs Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Tej (Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges), ace British hacker Ramsey (Nathalie Immanuel) and Dom’s sister Mia (Jordana Brewster, returning after a three-movie hiatus). Also returning are the Tokyo boys: Lucas Black (Sean Boswell), Jason Tobin (Earl) and Shad Moss (Twinkie). The first ‘it’ moment (although this had been already teased in the trailer) is the revelation that laconic fan favourite Han Lue (Sung Kang) faked his death in the events depicted by Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift. This might feel like a major retcon, but there really is no such thing in the Fast & Furious universe.
The best thing about F9 is that the sprawling cast is, by and large, in on the joke. They know exactly what this film is about (which is to say, a bunch of impressively mounted set pieces stitched together with melodrama and the occasional bit of sarcasm-laden humour) and they do not try to deliver seven ounces of acting where two spoonfuls suffice.
Screen legends Helen Mirren, Kurt Russell and Charlize Theron all excel in the five-minute roles that F9 affords them; no more and no less.
The two most striking sequences in the movie involve Roman and Tej: the first, when they watch the Tokyo boys Lucas, Twinkie and Earl test-drive (via remote control) the “two-minute car”; a rocket engine strapped to a Pontiac Fiero via duct tape… and not much else. It’s exactly as insane and it sounds and is topped only by its successor late in the film, when Roman and Tej drive an improved-upon version of said rocket-Fiero, all the way into outer space, in order to destroy a satellite that Project Ares uses. Gibson and Bridges do a good job recognizsng the innate absurdity of this scene and their comic double turn brings a sense of appropriate surrealism here.
The lines are either facile (“it’s more important to be the bigger man, not the stronger one”) or forgettable (“it’s easy to say grace; you just say whatever’s in your heart”) but you won’t find too many audience members complaining, to be honest. This is not that kind of movie and Fast & Furious isn’t that kind of franchise. What it is, is bloody good fun when not weighed down by considerations outside of even its impressive pay scale (like, say 2009’s Fast & Furious 4 was). Enter the theatres prepared for an adrenaline jab to the heart and words you will forget immediately after, and you won’t be disappointed.
Rating: 3/5
F9 will be available in Indian theatres from this Thursday, 2 September.
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